How many of those for us were actually Redknapp signings, though? Levy clearly pushed a few himself and Comolli claims a number of them, too. The crap talked about him for his time at Pompey is just ludicrous. He should be an absolute hero to them, rather than being lumped in with those that destroyed them.
Sure there are lots of grey areas at Spurs in relation to how to apportion credit/blame for transfers. So I just take the simple approach and think that if you're critiquing Harry's transfer policy just assume that all transfers in his time were "his". It's as good a working hypothesis as any.
Not when you're portraying them as an overall positive and comparing it to signings made under a DoF, which some of them were. Comolli brought in some very good players during his time at the club, so merely hailing the good ones might leave people wondering why he got the boot. That he also signed some ****e and often went after completely inappropriate players ("You need a left-back? Here, have another striker!") is closer to the truth.
Oh yes indeed, winning the FA cup is such a marvellous feat, that putting the clubs future at stake is a small price to pay. Legend.
But then that begs the question: What is a better way to apportion credit for the transfers? Go by what one blogger said once and then was repeated over and over on the web til it became true for most people? Of course some deals might have been lined up before he came. Maybe. Maybe he'd never heard of Sandro til he was signed. Maybe. Maybe not. But then what about signings made after he left? Shouldn't we give Harry some credit for the signing of Adebayor even though his permanent deal was sorted out after Harry left? Surely he had some knowledge of Vertonghen, say, since we bought him shortly after he left and had been linked with him for ages beforehand? So of course it is imperfect to judge Harry purely on the signings that were made by the club whilst he was our manager and, ostensibly at least, we had no DoF in the sense of someone who scouts players. But I can't see a better way to do it. Picking this one out and that one out as being a "Harry signing" or "not a Harry signing" seems to me to be lightly-informed cherry-picking for the most part. I mean - even the one that we normally take as clearly "not a Harry signing", VDV: should we give Harry zero credit for that? At the time we had Crouch and Defoe who, as usual, were a very handy partnership. But, given the option, Harry told Levy "Yep - go for it if we can get him". I mean I'm not saying it's strategic genius or anything but he didn't have to break up a partnership and formation that had worked to take a punt on someone who had become a questionable bit-part player at Madrid. Might as well give him credit for the lot and then, when weighing up the Pienaars against the Parkers, we can make a fair judgement.
He didn't put the club's future at stake though, the various dodgy owners and Peter Storrie did. Allowing an alleged arms dealer to buy the club was probably not a great idea, he?
And he relegated Saints. That was all his doing, and his alone. Plus, it's a fact that Levy gave Redknapp the club's cheque-book and told 'Arry, "There you go, son! You an' Rosy go an' fill yer boots!" It was a mistake that very nearly bankrupted Spurs.
I agree with that mostly but they are pretty much all signings to fix perceived problems rather than with any thought to the future. Comolli signed Berbatov, Bale and Modric who between them increased the value of our squad by about £120m so even throwing a few lemons in leaves him well in credit. If we could have kept him alongside Redknapp we could really have gone places.
Morgan Schneiderlin has claimed that Southampton blocked his transfer this summer to a club that isn't in the Champions League. Ooh, cryptic.
Redknap didn't spend the money...he asked for players and the chairman and the board said they could afford it when they obviously couldn't. There were no such problems at spurs ... why? Maybe because our chairman and directors only agreed to spend what we could afford. By the way... wind your neck in and lay of the 's ... it don't help keep the discussion sensible As a saints fan I suspect your problem with Redknap aint really anything to do with pompey
I think we should try and stay on topic as not every thread has to turn into a debate over Harry Redknapp.
Agreed, but debates progressiing into Harry talk, do illustrate as reminders of what a great impact the man had on our club and also how we are still behind from the day he left.
Everyone knows my views about Redknapp, but it did make me laugh, when he was first appointed our manager, how every fan and his dog came onto this board to tell us how, Redknapp having bankrupted and relegated WHFC, Pompey, and Saints, he was going to bankrupt us! Whatever criticisms I may have of the man during the latter part of his tenure with us, there is no getting away from the fact that, by and large, clubs have prospered under Redknapp, both in terms of value-for-money players he brings in, and the kind of football that he treats fans to. The fact that, in the past, some owners have made dreadful financial mistakes that have cost their clubs dear is no bad reflection on Redknapp.
Except Comolli didn't sign two of those three - Berbatov was a player Jol wanted (and practically had to beg Comolli to sign) while Modric's transfer was handled by Levy with no involvement from Comolli. That just leaves Bale and, let's be honest, even when we signed him it wasn't like we were unearthing some undiscovered gem.
