Spurs’ rise excites Redknapp

The London side beat Manchester City last Wednesday to clinch fourth spot in the league and qualify for the lucrative Champions League alongside Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal. That victory completed a remarkable turn-around for Spurs, which was bottom of the league when Redknapp took over in October 2008.

“I’d be a liar if I said I expected us to finish in the top four this year, genuinely, I couldn’t see anybody but Manchester City, maybe, breaking into the top four this season,” Redknapp told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Sportsweek show. “I certainly felt we would finish in the top seven and get a European place, but to be in the top four was even better than I expected.”

Asked how he had managed to transform the club, Redknapp insisted that the recipe for success was a simple one, saying: “It’s a club that shouldn’t have been in the position they were in when I arrived. You looked at the playing staff and the squad and it was a good squad of players which, for whatever reason, hadn’t been playing very well.

“I know it sounds a bit basic, but anyone who tells you there’s some magic formula and it’s all about super coaches and everything else is really kidding themselves and trying to kid everybody else.

“You get good players, you play them in the positions they are supposed to play in, you tell them what you expect them to do during the game, you tell them what their responsibilities are to the team and how you expect them to play. They are very well-paid, talented footballers and they then go out and you get them to play.”

Redknapp said he does not expect to make wholesale changes to his squad this summer. He said: “We have got a good squad, I am happy with the squad we have got. If we could find maybe one special player who could make the difference, I think that would be where we would look to.

“I am certainly not in the position where I am going to sit here and say we need four, five, six players – we don’t. I wouldn’t know what to do with them, it would be too many players around. It would cause you more problems than enough.”