Re Lamela. I may be wrong on this, but I was thinking that AVB saw him as eventually playing a kind of Bale free role. Whether he will adapt to the Premiership, only time will tell. Maybe, he'll need the same kind of break through injuries that Bale got to get a run of games. Thinking of Bale, I certainly wouldn't write Lamela off yet. A lot of people ( including Harry) wrote Bale of, and if we had received a half way decent bid for him, Harry would have sold him!...
I was talking generally, but I don't want to knacker our first XI in the Europa or League Cup games, so I think we need to look at our options.
Sorry NSIS but Redknapp never wrote Bale off, he helped his career and that article about him being sold to a Championship club was from the daily fail who just write gossip for the sake of it, and to draw attention to their sites for advertising. But agree with the sentiment re Lamela as definitely not writing him off, I'll love to see him become a success, but like Bale and Redknapp, he needs a manager who will play him even when things aren't go well.
but Redknapp did not play Bale when things were going bad. He dropped him and even commented on his "curse" and only broke that supposed curse by bringing him on late in a game we were winning comfortably. Bale got his proper chance because of injury, not because Redknapp had faith.
Of course he played him when things where going bad, that doesn't mean every game and if Redknapp never rated him or wrote him off he wouldn't have used him as effectively as he did. Thats good man management from a manager who rated Bale and saw him in training, or if you wish you can believe what the daily fail said about Redknapp writing Bale off.
i think every bit of evidence you found could just as easily support redknapp not rating him or being a crazy hoodoo believing moron.
Isn't that the point as we can all use "evidence" but its either from Redknapp or people who had an issue with Redknapp, leaving us to go with who we believe (or what happened on the pitch) and for a player Redknapp never rated (or wrote off), he played him a fair amount of times and helped him become a great player.
Redknapp claimed publicly that he intended to play Bale when Assou-Ekotto went to play in the African Nations' Cup. He picked up an injury shortly before he was due to go and Bale filled in. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/t/tottenham_hotspur/8427212.stm "I'm not looking for a left-back because you won't get a better one than Gareth Bale," said Redknapp. "I would go along with that. It's not so long ago he was looking a terrific signing for us and although we all know where his weaknesses lie, his performances for Wales have shown there is still a good player in there. If Harry can get his confidence up then I can see him surprising a few people." - Spurcat with a mild understatement on the old606 link from that article.
Gareth Barry is not as bad as made out, he's been singled out for praise more than once this season, with good reason too, he has been an important part of Evertons best games. We didn't need him as we have Sandro, Dembele, and Capoue, but he does the scruffy stuff and keeps things ticking very well for them, Barkeley has licence to do what he wants as a result. Whether Martinez feels he can do it next year remains to be seen, but he's doing a perfectly good short term job for them, don't understand the criticism. Martinez has in general improved Everton (the powers at OT should take note!), if Barry was such a weak link I doubt that would be the case.
Exactly how I remember it too. I have little doubt that Fail story or no Fail story, Harry would have sold him had a decent bid come along...
A view which is wrong but all that's important is Redknapp stuck by a player he apparently never rated, and the rest is history.
Good luck to man City tonight Man City: Hart, Richards, Lescott, Demichelis, Kolarov If they keep bayern out with that defence then all credit to them!
Garcia plays too. Looks like a night off for the City players then. No danger of Aguero doing a Tevez when he's left on the bench all night in Munich
Looks like a night off for the football as well, 2 - 0 down after 12 minutes. Empty seats at Old Toilet tonight, the plastics are leaving in hordes.
