He immediately identified our flaccidity in the middle of the park and signed Palacios in January 2009, who for the first season and a half of his Spurs career was a massive player for us. In Redknapp's first full season in charge we qualified for the Champions League and Redknapp won the Premier League Manager of the Year award. Only the second manager to do so in a season when his side did not win the title.
The next year was a mixed year in my eyes. We had an amazing run in the Champions League, beating both Milan sides on our way to a quarter final battering from Real Madrid. The league form suffered however, and we failed to take easy points from bottom feeder teams and ended up fifth, and into the depressing world of the Europa League.
At the start of this season, we sign Parker, Friedel and Adebayor. Adebayor can perhaps be attributed to Levy's negotiation skills, but Parker and Friedel are very much Redknapp signings. We were all a little underwhelmed at the time, but both Friedel and Parker are now integral members of the starting 11, and you'd be hard pressed to find a Spurs fan that doesn't think they've been excellent signings. We now sit joint fourth with a game in hand, having won seven of our last eight league games, thus completing the 2 points 8 games to 2 points dropped from 8 games circle.Redknapp has built a good squad since he took over and we are now odds on to get ourselves back into the Champions League. How that actually pans out is something for the gods of football to decide, but he's got us well placed to do it. He's currently getting the best out of Van der Vaart, something that "better" managers have not managed, and one of his best achievements at Spurs I think we can be most proud of, is getting our left wing to the position where it is potentially one of the best in the league. Assou-Ekkoto and Bale have always been good players, but it's taken a character like Redknapp to get the best out of them and they've not looked back. Well, Bale has a bit, but he's still young.
Like all managers, sometimes there are some questionable tactical calls, but the benefit of hindsight for us moan prone Spurs fans is a wonderful thing. Yes, he may have inherited a team that should have been doing better than they were. And while I might not agree with the way Redknapp sometimes deals with the media, eg. the angling for the England job self-preservation tactics of saying "them" when we lose, the "we" when we win, and calling all Spurs fans who disagree with him idiots... You cannot deny Harry knows how to build a team and he is currently spearheading some of the best football at Tottenham in a very long time.
There are clichés in life that encourage you to take the good with the bad, and look at the silver lining of things, and at the moment, the good football is outweighing the bad stuff, and if the Spurs players and hearts of longing Spurs fans are to be believed, some silver linings in the way of silverware are just round the corner as well.Harry. Get well soon, get back in the dug out, and long may you continue to take us upwards. COYS.
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