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Premiership Football News: Harry Redknapp

Andy Greeves

Harry Redknapp insisted this week that he's no "miracle worker", but try telling the Spurs faithful that right now.

Five wins, one draw and just one defeat since his appointment as Tottenham manager on October 25th, means Redknapp has made the best start to a managerial reign at the club for 110 years. He has transformed the performances and confidence of side languishing four points from safety at the bottom of the Premiership table just over three weeks ago. Spurs have progressed to the quarter finals of the Carling Cup in recent weeks and got their UEFA Cup campaign back on track with a convincing 4-0 victory over Dynamo Zagreb. More importantly, beat Blackburn on Sunday and the north Londoners could move as high as eleventh in the league.

As someone who watches Spurs week in, week out, I can't believe the players in front of me now are the same lily-livered souls that plied their trade under Juande Ramos. While the threat of relegation cannot be ignored, especially given that we still find ourselves in the bottom three, we can at least start focusing on more pleasurable pursuits. The 4-0 win over Dynamo Zagreb has resurrected our UEFA Cup challenge, while victory over Watford in two weeks time would see us just two legs from a return to Wembley in the Carling Cup.

So baring any magical ability, what has Harry Redknapp done to get the players and supporters of Tottenham Hotspur believing again?

1) Axed the Director of Football

Harry Redknapp took the managerial post at Tottenham on the condition he would not have to work under a sporting director. "I will pick the players, and if he [Levy] can deliver them then great," Redknapp told the press in his first Spurs press conference. "I would not let anyone else buy my players. There is no question of a director of football. I just deal with the chairman."

Daniel Levy first installed a Sporting Director position at Tottenham in the summer of 2004, installing Frank Arnesen to work along side head coach Jacques Santini and assistant Martin Jol. After just five months at the helm, Santini resigned, claiming he found it impossible to work with Arnesen. "Right from the off there was a problem with who was in charge," Santini told French TV station TPS in November 2004. "When it came to buying players, we never found a way of agreeing how to prepare the season and buy players. I was told I'd be in charge of all first-team matters. I'd buy and sell players and do the coaching. It became clear I was only in charge of coaching and not buying."

Arnesen would lose his job at Tottenham in June 2005, after Chelsea illegally approached the director with an offer of employment at Stamford Bridge. He was replaced by Daniel Comolli, an individual both future managers, Martin Jol and Juande Ramos had clear difficulties working with.

Jol said that in the summer of 2007 his position as first team manager "was becoming very difficult," after Comolli engineered the signings of Darren Bent, Kevin Prince Boateng, Abel Taarabt and Younes Kaboul. "I felt the squad would be unbalanced with these signings," Jol said, "and it proved to be the case. When Frank Arnesen was director of football we spoke together about the players to bring to the club. But I did not have the same relationship with the next man (Comolli)"

Spurs supporters have been furious with the ambiguity over who is responsible for transfer dealings ever since the introduction of a Director of Football/Sporting Director role at White Hart Lane. Aside from the frustrations of not addressing areas of the team that had need improvement, for example the desperation for a left winger during the summer 2007 transfer window, millions of pounds seem to have been wasted on players that have had little more than a sniff of first team action.

In Daniel Levy's recent open letter to fans, the Spurs chairman announced that the Sporting Director role at Tottenham had been scrapped. "In Harry, we are also accepting with his appointment that now is the right time for us to move back to a more traditional style of football management at our club," he said.

Redknapp's influence on the club in scrapping the Sporting Director post is seen as a massive victory by the vast majority of fans at the Lane, who were concerned with the negative impact in had on the running of team affairs.

2) Won back the dressing room

Not only has Harry achieved an early victory in the boardroom, he's also triumphed in the dressing room.

In the weeks before Redknapp's appointment, a string of players spoke out against the morale in the camp and Ramos' management. Jonathan Woodgate described the team as "rudderless" and "worse than the Leeds team that went down," while David Bentley said Spurs looked "like a team that don't know what they are doing." And following the UEFA Cup defeat to Udinese, Luka Modric criticised Ramos' tactics claiming he was "I was all alone in the middle (of the pitch)."

But how Redknapp has changed that. The players look hungry on the pitch, in a way they rarely did under Ramos. Skipper Ledley King described the moment the team first found out Redknapp was becoming the club's manager was "like a weight had been lifted off the players' shoulders." On form striker Darren Bent claims Redknapp has more belief in him than Ramos, hence his excellent goal scoring record of late.

Jonathan Woodgate simply believes that Redknapp has "brought a winning mentality" to White Hart Lane.

3) Communication

Juande Ramos' difficulties in speaking English appeared to exacerbate the problems he had during his tenure as Tottenham manager.

"I think something I've probably learned over the last few years that communication with the manager and the players is absolutely vital," conceded chairman Daniel Levy. "I've known Harry for a number of years and I think he's a great communicator. I think it is very important that that person (the manager) is a good communicator," he continued.

Skipper Ledley King intimated communication was an issue between Ramos and the players adding, "It is brilliant to have an English manager," upon the appointment of Redknapp. "Juande had come from Spain," said King. "You never know who will work but there are big advantages in having someone like Harry who knows the league and every player in the league."

Redknapp is not afraid to bark orders from the touch line, something clearly lacking during Ramos' time in charge. In fact he left the shouting to Gus Poyet, while he stood or sat in silence, carrying the persona of a dead man walking in his last couple of months in charge. Players need instructions and Redknapp has shown throughout his managerial career he is the man to give them.

He's even got the knack of communicating through a translator, as Spurs fans found out following their side's 2-1 league victory over Liverpool. When quizzed on what instructions he gave to Russian striker and winning goal scorer Roman Pavlyuchenko he replied, "Roman's got an interpreter and I said to him at half-time: 'Tell him to f***ing run about'".

Not a man for subtlety clearly!

5) Plays individuals in their right position

Two players to benefit most from Harry Redknapp's appointment are David Bentley and Luka Modric.

Bentley was played as a left winger in his first games under Juande Ramos, then as a second striker and was even asked to play at right back against Hull (which he declined to do). The former Blackburn winger went as far as to suggest that Ramos' meddling with his position and failure to select him on a regular basis, has cost him his place in recent England squads. Bentley talked to boss Juande Ramos about these issues ahead of Spurs visit to Udinese and subsequently found himself dropped from the squad in Italy.

Under Redknapp, Bentley has been given a straight run of games and has prospered. His strike against Arsenal is an early contender for goal of the season and he looks like a player re-born.

As does Luka Modric, who was harshly dubbed Luka 'Moderate' by the tabloids after his first few months in the Premiership. While Juande Ramos exposed the player's physical weaknesses, playing him in central midfield with no holding player to support him, Redknapp has brought out his strengths. His skill, vision and shooting ability has been on show of late, as the Croatian plays as a second striker. He was influential is Spurs comeback against Arsenal and ran the show in the away victory at Manchester City. A torn muscle means Modric is likely to miss the next few games, but if his recent performances continue when he recovers from injury, he can stamp his class all over the Premiership this season.

6) Man management

If Bentley and Modric needed picking in the right position, striker Darren Bent just needed a pick-me-up.

Having been brought to the club last season, clearly against the wishes of then manager Martin Jol, Bent was fourth choice behind front men Dimitar Berbatov, Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe. His fortunes didn't improve under Juande Ramos and despite starting the opening five games of the season, the Spaniard dropped him to the bench for the next two matches.

Eight of Bent's eleven goals for Spurs this season have come under the management of Harry Redknapp. Bent believes the new boss simply believes in him more than the former one. His form has led him to an England recall and to third place in the Premier League scoring charts.

"If I was summing up Bent's renaissance, I would attribute it to three things," Alan Hansen recently told the BBC. What Harry has said. How Bent has reacted to his manager's words and how Spurs have started to play well again."

Andy Greeves

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