Quite a balanced article regarding his comments:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog ... y-redknapp Manchester City intend to transform the Premier League. The plan has not got very far yet but the reactions of rival managers are changing. Etiquette is the first casualty now that there is such interest in City. Following the 0-0 draw at White Hart Lane on Saturday, Harry Redknapp broke the conventions that call for discretion towards opponents. It is particularly risky to disparage a side that has left with a point since it raises doubts about your own squad.
On their way to the title last season, Chelsea lost at Tottenham Hotspur, meeting the same fate there as Arsenal and Liverpool. Redknapp's side were on the rise and ascended into the Champions League qualifiers that see them begin the tie with Young Boys in Bern tomorrow . On the domestic front, however, City are a disturbing complication for anyone, like Tottenham, with designs on consolidating among the elite. There was more than just wishful thinking in Redknapp's suggestion that City will end the campaign outside the top four.
He felt free to plunge into speculation about the challenge awaiting his opposite number. "Can he keep the players happy? It's difficult. He's not going to do it," the Tottenham manager said of Roberto Mancini. Redknapp could be vindicated but the readiness to address such issues and comment on the internal affairs of another club is at least a departure from managerial conventions.
Paradoxically, the interesting aspect to the first real sighting of Mancini's line-up was its dullness. It was as if the one shock he could spring lay in wilful monotony. After all the outlay and glamour of the transfers, he picked a midfield comprising three defensive players. Tottenham accepted the invitation to dominate and were, to some extent, thwarted by the outstanding Joe Hart. In that regard, though, City were flaunting the assets at their disposal.
Hart, a 23-year-old who has the opportunity to be England's goalkeeper for many seasons to come after being preferred against Hungary last week, was bought from Shrewbury for an initial £600,000 in the summer of 2006. Prudence has only a walk-on part in the melodrama of the club. The ownership of the highly contentious Thaksin Shinawatra and then Sheikh Mansour's Abu Dhabi United Group have had a certain return, with the club finishing in the top half of the table in each of the past three campaigns.
Those efforts did not exactly bring on a feeling of vertigo but City were in good enough condition for the experiment now being conducted with ever more vigour and expense. It can certainly be accused of crassness, but the scale of the outlay is more of a novelty than the project of buying the title. Blackburn Rovers wielded Jack Walker's means to become champions in 1995 but the prize came more than three years after the appointment of Kenny Dalglish and his work merited profound admiration. Signings such as Alan Shearer, Chris Sutton and Graeme Le Saux were eventually transferred at a large profit.
There will be no parallel in that regard at City and Sheikh Mansour will not anticipate a windfall from player sales, but Mancini, if he is to keep his job, has to emulate the exploits of Dalglish. Given the context, a prosaic opening to the programme at White Hart Lane will have been gratifying. No one left the ground denouncing City for frivolity or posturing.
Mancini is in a post where job security is at a minimum, but few people have such relevant experience for the Eastlands assignment. He is bound to know his way round the labyrinth after dealing with money, intrigue and pressure at Internazionale. It seems, too, that he is in luck since this is a period when so many of his peers are short of means and engaged in the reluctant effort to demonstrate that they are masters of the tight budget.
All sorts of hazards lie ahead for Mancini. It will be exacting for him to decide which players ought to go out on loan, to stay on reasonable terms with those picked irregularly and to coax consistent form out of the team. Even so, managers at other clubs will envy him options they no longer enjoy. City did not dazzle or even look effective on the ball at White Hart Lane, but there was nothing to ridicule either.
If improvement turns out to be unavoidable, even Redknapp will have to agree that City truly can destroy all our preconceptions about the Premier League hierarchy.
Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2010 11:31 am