Harry Redknapp: The Aftermath

[Crawley]

Hoddles other failing was sticking to a system he didnt have the players for.

His 352 was outstanding when Ziege and Carr were fit, but "Ziege", "Carr" and "fit" have never fit well in the same sentance!

When either or both were out he struggled without natural replacements.

Now, where have I heard that recently? :-k

 

[nayimfromthehalfwayline]

I very nearly added that exact same point, but figured I would only be accused of being irrational due to my blind Harry hatred... :-"

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

Hoddles other failing was sticking to a system he didnt have the players for.

His 352 was outstanding when Ziege and Carr were fit, but "Ziege", "Carr" and "fit" have never fit well in the same sentance!

When either or both were out he struggled without natural replacements.

When Ziege was fit. Carr hardly played it. I think Ziege and Carr played one match in the same team under Hoddle.

Also, and I remember these battles well on A.S.S., people forget that Hoddle switched to 4-4-2 for the 2002/03 season and we played it for the majority of the season too.

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

I think it is, when you are telling people their views are wrong due to perception, and yet you seem to be lacking the perception to understand the views being made.

Maybe Im right, maybe Im not, but Im certain you would never admit even if I was.

I understand most views. I have thought about them, dismissed them. Why am I going to suddenly start agreeing with a viewpoint I have already thought brickloads about and dismissed?

 

[nayimfromthehalfwayline]

I didnt say you should agree.

Perhaps its posting style, but you never even seem to give credence to a view or entertain the possibilities of it, instead prefering to speak in absolutes about how you are right and thats it.

Like I say, could be something lost in the medium of t'internet, wouldnt surprise me at all if we got on famously over a pint in person.

 

[nayimfromthehalfwayline]

I have to admit my memory of the period is hazy, though I could have sworn they played more than once together.

I have the overiding feeling of him trying to hang on for the perfect 352 and it never really materialising, to much frustration

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

I have to admit my memory of the period is hazy, though I could have sworn they played more than once together.

I have the overiding feeling of him trying to hang on for the perfect 352 and it never really materialising, to much frustration

He kept trying to go back to it. Ironically I think things work in cycles and the 3-5-2 is the perfect formation to smash 4-5-1. I also think it's the formation we should have played with Lennon out. That way we could play VDV alongside Modric and Parker in midfield AND still have two strikers. Bale and Walker are fast and hard working enough to be wing backs. When Martinez's 3-4-3 when I was one of the least surprised people around. 3 at the back makes perfect sense against a lone striker.

As for Hoddle? I thought he was a bit unlucky. Partly down to Pleat and partly down to the kids that were meant to take over from the oldies simply weren't good enough. I got brick at the time for saying I didn't rate Davies, Etherington or Gardner that highly and that was one time I was genuinely disappointed to be proved right. We also just missed out on Parker. Had he been in that 2003/04 side I think things may have turned out so much differently.

 

[nayimfromthehalfwayline]

He kept trying to go back to it. Ironically I think things work in cycles and the 3-5-2 is the perfect formation to smash 4-5-1. I also think it's the formation we should have played with Lennon out. That way we could play VDV alongside Modric and Parker in midfield AND still have two strikers. Bale and Walker are fast and hard working enough to be wing backs. When Martinez's 3-4-3 when I was one of the least surprised people around. 3 at the back makes perfect sense against a lone striker.

As for Hoddle? I thought he was a bit unlucky. Partly down to Pleat and partly down to the kids that were meant to take over from the oldies simply weren't good enough. I got brick at the time for saying I didn't rate Davies, Etherington or Gardner that highly and that was one time I was genuinely disappointed to be proved right. We also just missed out on Parker. Had he been in that 2003/04 side I think things may have turned out so much differently.

I agree completely RE 352, and as I was reading your post was set to mention Martinez' 343 before seeing you beat me to it.

Ive long held the belief any (reasonable!) formation can work, and that it needs only the correct players to fill the roles properly.

I didnt want Hoddle to go. In line with the conversation we were having this afternoon, results obviously werent great, but I could see what he was trying to take the team and was fully on board with it. I also developed a deep dislike for Pleat due to his meddling at that point.

Parker, what a player he was at Charlton, looked set to be a genuine rival to Gerrard. You do have to wonder where he would be, and more specifically HOW he would play had he taken that move to us and Hoddle....

 

[bookhouseboy]

Fergie's CV wasn't exactly Mourinho. It was more like a Ramos.

I don't think there is a sure thing, and quite often it's about being the right man, at the right club, at the right time.

Fergie also inherited a team that hadn't finished outside of the top four for SEVEN years. First season he had them finishing 11th, taking over when they were low down the league (like Harry did with us, guiding us to 8th). Second season he had them finishing an excellent 2nd. The third season? They finished 11th. The fourth season? They finished 13th!

Patience is a virtue.....

The difference is that AF was at a stage in his career when he still learned his trade and eventually improved; are there anything from our last 2 seasons that points to Mr. Redknapp learning and improving on his (very primitive) skillset?
He's an old dinosaur that did his job when he got here, but he was never the manager to take ut to the next level.

I'm all for patience and leaning more and more for one of Rodgers or Martinez as our next manager, but my patience with Mr. Redknapp are long overdue.

 

[mick cooper]

I didnt say you should agree.

Perhaps its posting style, but you never even seem to give credence to a view or entertain the possibilities of it, instead prefering to speak in absolutes about how you are right and thats it.

Like I say, could be something lost in the medium of t'internet, wouldnt surprise me at all if we got on famously over a pint in person.

doubtful, you would probably be trampled to death by the line of people trying to fill him in......
:lol:

 

[BrainOfLevy]

In defence of Harry...tonight showed that even the greatest team in the world will have trouble breaking down a team who only want to defend. We've had that in this run against Everton in the second half, Stoke, Sunderland and QPR. Against Man United and Chelsea we definitely deserved more than we got, and therefore it's really only the Arsenal and Norwich games that were real poor performances.

Yes we need to be able to mix it up, but when Defoe is your only striker is it that easy?

 

[mick cooper]

In defence of Harry...tonight showed that even the greatest team in the world will have trouble breaking down a team who only want to defend. We've had that in this run against Everton in the second half, Stoke, Sunderland and QPR. Against Man United and Chelsea we definitely deserved more than we got, and therefore it's really only the Arsenal and Norwich games that were real poor performances.

Yes we need to be able to mix it up, but when Defoe is your only striker is it that easy?

nah, that won't wash, everyone who posts on here could fix that, and buy better players to replace JD with. HRs taken us as far as he can, unless he was given Mancinis budget, or was bankrolled by Roman, or had access to Dalglish's pot of gold.

 

[Gutter Boy]

Only it hasn't worked for us, where as the 4-4-1-1 has......

It's the same thing. It's just a margin on how much Rafa drops into midfield, and how much he, Bale and Lennon interchange.

 

[SUIYHA]

Hardly. I think you listing those players about sums it up. Dean Richards was a decent purchase for the level we were at, at the time. Postiga flopped, but was hardly us breaking the bank and is exactly the sort of gamble purchase so many of our fans are urging us to do nowadays, Bunjy and Acimovic cost what? ?ú1.5m for the two of them? Mabizela was a Pleat special, and Toda a loan deal.

Hoddle also lead us to our highest league finish in what? Six or seven seasons? And IIRC we finished 9th under him which was something like only the third time we'd finished top 10 in a decade.

Hoddle's biggest failing was not getting in a defensive midfielder to replace Freund. Of course it came out afterwards that Pleat intentionally failed to get one and was in Levy's ear the whole time saying one wasn't required. Funny how the following season Arnesen came in and purchased three :lol:

Richards cost us ?ú8m, based on the back of having a run of seven straight clean sheets for Southampton the previous year. That was a huge amount of money back in those days and was our second biggest signing ever at the time. It would be the equivalent of somebody signing Roger Johnson or Scott Dann for ?ú15m after Birmingham went 12 games unbeaten in the 09/10 season. Postiga was a player I'd never heard of before we signed him, and has done sweet fudge all since we signed him. He was no good, and Hoddle should have scouted him better. Bunjevcevic and Acimovic were cheap, but they were both very poor. The thing that grates me most about Acimovic was that we could have had Jay-Jay Okocha, also on a free, in the same transfer window, and we chose Acimovic instead. As for the others, are we going to get into this "was that a Comolli signing" DoF thing again?

You mention him getting to 9th place as our best finish in six or seven years as some kind of achievement. Yes, it's an achievement if you're comparing it to what Christian Gross and George Graham were able to achieve, but the three place jump from 12th to 9th isn't nearly as hard to do as going from 4th to 1st, or even 7th to 4th. All sorts of brick have finished in the top 9 every now and again, in the last 5 years Birmingham, Reading, Blackburn, Bolton, Portsmouth and West Ham have all equalled or in some cases bettered Hoddle's greatest achievment as Spurs boss.

Not getting a DM was a big big mistake he made. I don't buy that Pleat outright refused to sign one because the first signing he made when he took the reigns was Michael Brown. Hoddle thought Jamie Redknapp could play that role, despite not being a proper DM and not being reliable to stay fit. Another big problem was poor tactics. 3-5-2 died when 4-3-3 became popular, yet Hoddle stuck to it even when he went to Wolves after Spurs. This, and the fact that the teams he'd be sending out had absolutely no pace in them. Didn't like Redknapp signing Saha, Nelsen and Parker? How did you feel when we were regularly starting Sheringham, Ferdinand, Anderton, Poyet, Redknapp and Freund/Sherwood together. I also haven't mentioned how Hoddle, even though he is a good coach and has the right ideas of the way football should be played, by all accounts seems to be a very poor man manager. He fell out with a number of people here last time around and half the England team slagged him off in their autobiographies.

It's pointless discussing this anyway, there's no way Levy would ever bring back somebody that he sacked himself. If it had been someone like Poyet making the step up to a manager's role (with a bit more experience under his belt), then I could see it, but can you really imagine the phone call to Hoddle where Levy backtracks from this statement:

"Following two seasons of disappointing results, there was a significant investment in the team during the summer, in order to give us the best possible chance of success this season.

"Unfortunately, the start to this season has been our worst since the Premiership was formed.

"Coupled with the extremely poor second half to last season, the current lack of progress and any visible sign of improvement are unacceptable.

"It is critical that I, and the board, have absolute confidence in the manager to deliver success to the club.

"Regrettably we do not. It is not a decision we have taken lightly. However, we are determined to see this Club succeed and we must now move forward."

 

[punk_is_back`]

He kept trying to go back to it. Ironically I think things work in cycles and the 3-5-2 is the perfect formation to smash 4-5-1. I also think it's the formation we should have played with Lennon out. That way we could play VDV alongside Modric and Parker in midfield AND still have two strikers. Bale and Walker are fast and hard working enough to be wing backs. When Martinez's 3-4-3 when I was one of the least surprised people around. 3 at the back makes perfect sense against a lone striker.

As for Hoddle? I thought he was a bit unlucky. Partly down to Pleat and partly down to the kids that were meant to take over from the oldies simply weren't good enough. I got brick at the time for saying I didn't rate Davies, Etherington or Gardner that highly and that was one time I was genuinely disappointed to be proved right. We also just missed out on Parker. Had he been in that 2003/04 side I think things may have turned out so much differently.

We missed out on Parker because he went chasing the ?ú?ú?ú?ú?ú at chelsea.

 

[VolSpur]

It's the same thing. It's just a margin on how much Rafa drops into midfield, and how much he, Bale and Lennon interchange.

GBs right, its the same thing. As long as its bale-modric-parker-lennon with Rafa somewhere in there it'll be pretty much the same formation. Problem is atm 'Arry just tells em to run about a bit. Call it a 4-2-3-1, 4-5-1, 4-1-4-1, 4-4-1-1 or whatever else you like, but its the same thing.

 

[thfcsteff]

In defence of Harry...tonight showed that even the greatest team in the world will have trouble breaking down a team who only want to defend. We've had that in this run against Everton in the second half, Stoke, Sunderland and QPR. Against Man United and Chelsea we definitely deserved more than we got, and therefore it's really only the Arsenal and Norwich games that were real poor performances.

Yes we need to be able to mix it up, but when Defoe is your only striker is it that easy?

It's a half-fair point IMHO...if we'd persist with Bale and Lennon wide, really try and get around the back of teams defending deep, then eventually space would open up in front for the likes of VdV to plunder...instead we tend to try and play through the middle!!!!! IT'S INFURIATING!

Barca actually don't have "wingers" per se, certainly not two orthodox wide players who can probe the space behind the full-backs over and over...

 

[ArcspacE]

It's a half-fair point IMHO...if we'd persist with Bale and Lennon wide, really try and get around the back of teams defending deep, then eventually space would open up in front for the likes of VdV to plunder...instead we tend to try and play through the middle!!!!! IT'S INFURIATING!

Barca actually don't have "wingers" per se, certainly not two orthodox wide players who can probe the space behind the full-backs over and over...

Absolutely spot on. Utd for example have utlisied their wingers to a devastating effect this season and look set for another trophy.

I have never seen Nani, Valencia or Young going through the middle, roaming around or playing in a free role.

Stay wide - use your pace - draw their men - deliver into the box, etc.

 

[DanishWhite]

It's not the same thing.

Talk formations all you like.

If VdV isn't where he's dangerous, if Defoe can't be arsed to move away from the two centrebacks, if Bale thinks he's so good he deserves a free role and spends most game standing around 5 yards behind the striker, if Saha can't be arsed to attack crosses, if Lennon thinks it's a wingers job to cut inside to his bad foot each time, etc etc etc ...

... then there's nothing formations will do or not do for us. It's the players' responsibilities. And moreso the managers responsibility. End of story.

 

[Enter the Pitbull]

I have seen Nani operate in a free role before, but point taken.