Harry’s De Friend But Will Downing Be De Foe?

Did anyone seriously doubt that Harry Redknapp would immediately improve Spurs? What is more surprising is that it has taken until now for him to be picked up by a big club. Only a few modern day managers can claim to have such an unblemished CV when it comes to football management. Beyond Wenger, Ferguson and O’Neill, there are few who can claim such consistency at the top level.

Redknapp first improved Bournemouth before overseeing a revival at West Ham and concurrently developing a crop of youngsters to compare with ‘Fergie’s Fledglings’ of the early Nineties. After West Ham, Harry then kept Southampton up and, in two spells at Portsmouth, took them from the relegation zone to Europe in less than two years.

I really can’t speak highly enough of the man and the manager. Harry combines football knowledge with a charisma and likeability that commands respect amongst everyone he works with. Whatsmore, you always feel that you are getting honesty from the man. He seems uninterested in playing games with the press and instead offers an ostensibly candid and no nonsense response to any question put to him. And footballers want to play for him because he generally improves everyone that he coaches. How many managers, for instance, could have attracted a front line of Crouch and Defoe to Fratton Park? Portsmouth fans may feel bitter about his departure but they should remember that, without him, they would almost certainly be playing in the Championship today.

So, with such a glittering CV and such a wide variety of qualities, one would have thought that Harry’s latest transfer targets would be a shoe-in for success at White Hart Lane. But whilst Jermaine Defoe looks like a low risk acquisition, I have my doubts about the prospective signing of Stewart Downing.

I have of course been wrong in the past, most notably with my prediction in this column, that Robinho would be a failure at Eastlands, after signing for Manchester City in August.

But when I look at Downing, I see a winger without guile. Sure, he has decent pace and a good left foot, but I have always found him to be too conventional a player for the top end of the modern game. These days, wingers not only need pace but trickery and this is an area where I feel Downing comes up short. He is only young of course and has much time to develop under the tutelage of the wizard, but I wonder whether Downing, who has been cruelly exposed thus far at international level, has the skill level to become integral to a team that wants to challenge for a birth in the Champions League in the next couple of years.

I would be uneasy about signing a winger who appears to have less skill than most of the top full backs in the Premier League. Tottenham have reportedly had a 3rd bid of £14.5m turned down in the last three days. But is he really worth the money, or would Harry be better off attempting to lure Ashley Young from Villa, or even Nani from Manchester United. What do you think?