Hairy Times for Harry: By Andrew Walker

He built his reputation as the wheeler-dealer extraordinaire, the true footballers’ manager. But after a promising start at Tottenham, his expensively assembled squad have turned in a series of insipid, listless performances that leave them embroiled in a relegation dogfight. And in amongst the madness, Harry Redknapp appears to be suffering an identity crisis.

The wheeler-dealer is now redundant, as Daniel Levy has backed his manager to the tune of £43m in the January Sales. Redknapp has built his reputation on making his players feel like a million dollars. At Spurs, he has inherited a group of young men who seem all too aware that they are worth a million dollars (and the rest).

Redknapp’s passion for football has made him one of the sport’s more popular figures (Saints fans excepted). Yet in the maelstrom that is Tottenham Hotspur, this passion has spilt over, and the straight talking has become ill directed.

The Spurs boss has launched into a regular tirade of personal, and on occasion, bizarre rants against his charges. If this is an attempt at tough love, it is surely backfiring in spectacular fashion. Darren Bent is a case in point.

Bent has netted over a third of Spurs’ 26 PL goals this season (9, compared to Roman Pavlyuchenko’s three). Yet when he missed a guilt-edged chance against Portsmouth recently, Redknapp splurged, ‘My missus Sandra could have scored that’.

The nature of the criticism, coupled with the resigning of former strikers Jermain Defoe and Robbie Keane, leaves Bent every reason to feel distinctly unloved.

The team have felt their manager’s wrath as a collective too, with him repeatedly referring to what he calls a ‘mish-mash’ of players. One can only imagine what this does for the morale of an already fragile dressing room.

He is even taking pot shots at the media. Commentating for ITV on Spurs’ FA Cup defeat to Manchester United, Teddy Sheringham felt he saw ‘a lack of fight from Tottenham’. Words not said lightly, one would imagine, from someone who represented the club with such excellence. Redknapp’s response? To dismiss Sheringham’s view as ‘absolute rubbish’ and link the comments to a perceived media vendetta against his club.

Those of us who watched Tom Huddlestone and David Bentley amble their way through that game, and who observed no challenge from a Spurs player when a loose ball bounced up invitingly in the United area, will make up their own minds on that one.

You may recall, in the build-up to the game, Redknapp announced he would name the weakest team possible for the match, before about-turning and saying he would in fact pick the strongest team he could. The question is – how much did these confusing comments affect the eventual display? A player could forgiven for wondering which team he was in!

Harry Redknapp has not lost the attributes that have made him one of England’s most respected bosses. He is probably a little unlucky, as the squad he has inherited seem to have much more ego than desire. Come the summer, we can anticipate a mammoth clear out and several new faces at the Lane. At that point, there will be no more room for excuses, especially with a board that have chewed up and spat out their fair share of managers in the modern era.

Will £43m worth of transfer window signings save his side the drop? Surely. Will it pave the way for long-term success? The jury is well and truly out.