Tottenham 'odd couple' seem sure to join forces to keep Gareth Bale and Luka Modric after club miss out on Europe
After heart surgery, crown court trauma, on-field stresses and the dance with England, Harry Redknapp might have thought the season had run out of ways to torment him. The final kick in the guts, though, was brutal in its novelty and execution and it promised a wide-ranging test of even his powers of recovery.
The Tottenham Hotspur manager watched it unfold from his seat at the Allianz Arena on Saturday night. Nine months of blood, sweat and tears had secured a fourth-placed Premier League finish and everyone knows how that is traditionally rewarded. Not this year. Chelsea's tumultuous Champions League victory over Bayern Munich saw them take England's fourth and final spot in next season's competition. Tottenham's consolation is the Europa League, a tournament that they treated with indifference this season.
It does not feel fair to Redknapp or anyone connected to Tottenham. Chelsea had trailed behind them in sixth place; the domestic league is supposed to be the true measure of a team's worth. But Tottenham know that they have only themselves to blame. When they beat Newcastle United on 11 February, they were four points off the title pace and 10 clear of Arsenal and Chelsea in joint-fourth. There ought not to have been the scope for them to be felled by outrageous fortune.
Redknapp needs his holiday and he has plenty to ponder, not least the raft of stories in the pipeline about rival clubs ready to prey on his leading players, who are equally devastated to have missed out on Champions League football.
This is the first time since Redknapp joined Tottenham in October 2008 that it feels as though he has taken a step back and he could be forgiven for wondering what more he can do to fashion two in the right direction.
The 65-year-old has one year left on his White Hart Lane contract and so far there have been no talks with the chairman, Daniel Levy, about an extension. Tales abound about the friction between the pair – Redknapp himself describes theirs as an "odd couple" relationship – and each has the capacity to rub the other up the wrong way. It must be said, though, that clashes between managers who always want one more signing and chairmen who most assuredly do not are hardly unusual in the professional game.
Levy's hard bargaining is notorious and he has sometimes stood accused of being unreasonable. Players who want permanent moves away from Tottenham, having found that things have not worked out, have been driven to distraction by Levy's negotiating stances. Just talk to Sébastien Bassong who, when on the brink of a transfer to Queens Park Rangers, watched Levy wake up in the morning and double the agreed fee.
Redknapp himself has personal experience of the Levy Hardball. In 2010, after he had led Tottenham to a fourth-placed finish, which was something to celebrate, the Dubai club Al Ahli made a big-money move for him. Levy's compensation demands, though, were even more eye-watering. It was no-go. Redknapp had been interested and the opportunity to work in the gulf continues to carry some appeal.
Levy, though, is precisely the man that Tottenham are going to need this summer and he will feel confident about retaining Luka Modric, as he did last time out, and the squad's other stars, chief among them Gareth Bale. The Wales winger is known to want Champions League football and, in light of the knock-on effect from Chelsea's triumph, his representatives will seek talks with Levy.
Almost every glamour club in Europe covets Bale yet Levy will highlight the three years that remain on his contract and refuse to sell, unless an extraordinary offer were to be forthcoming, in the region of £60m.
It will be the same with Modric, whom Levy would not sell last summer to Chelsea for £40m. On that occasion, the club's silent billionaire benefactor Joe Lewis stepped in to support him and reinforce the message that Tottenham were not a selling club. Modric is hamstrung by the four long years that remain on his deal. Transfer requests mean little to Levy.
If Tottenham can retain their prized assets, cut through all the unease and refocus, there is not the need for radical surgery to the squad, even if Emmanuel Adebayor will leave a hole up front if Levy cannot make his loan move from Manchester City permanent. Adebayor earns £170,000-a-week; Tottenham's wage ceiling is £70,000. To borrow Redknapp's favourite phrase, it will be difficult. There is also the hindrance of not having Champions League football to put before recruits but this is hardly a new problem.
There are a host of Tottenham players who could command upwards of £70,000 a week on the open market and the feeling is that Levy must sit down with Lewis, to discuss how to appease them and the future direction of the club.
Yet the suspicion is that he will keep everything which moves bolted down. Irresistible forces might swirl. Levy is the immovable object. Read More
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