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Spurs vs. Wigan Review -or- A Rant About Harry Redknapp

I thought if I waited until Monday morning to post this that I would feel a little better. I thought that I would calm down and be a little more rational. I thought that I might start to view this game as a fluke and that it wasn't a big deal. Sorry, but this didn't happen. I still want to club baby seals to get out my frustration at Spurs.

Obviously, Harry Redknapp wasn't too happy after the loss. He was so unhappy, in fact, that he told a Sky Sports reporter to "f--k off" and that he was a "f--king football manager." That NSFW gem can be seen here. Frankly, Harry, I have to disagree.

Harry's made comments that football is only about 10% what a manager do and around 90% how players perform. I've discussed this on this site before. I don't disagree with Harry, though I would call it more like 80-20, but the point stands that managers often take a lot of heat for their tactics when in reality, their players were never going to win. Saturday, one of those games happened. Spurs' players were very poor and there probably wasn't a tactic in the world that would have changed that. However, that doesn't mean that Harry shouldn't have tried.

Harry Redknapp selected the team that he always selects. He put them in the formation he always puts them in. All of his substitutions were pretty close to like for like and didn't change the way we played at all. Based on the way the team played today, Harry didn't do the best job of mentally preparing them for this game. Based on the way they've played in previous games, I'm forced to assume that Harry could have done a better job of mentally preparing the team for the first leg against Young Boys and the second halves of the games against Manchester City and Stoke. Therefore...what does Harry Redknapp do, exactly?

It seems that if Redknapp is going to select the same team every week, play the same tactics, make no adjustments throughout the game, and fail to properly motivate his players, he doesn't need to have a job. If the game really is 90% down to the performances of players beyond what a manager can affect, why the hell are we cutting Harry Redknapp a big paycheck. It seems to me that a computer program could run Spurs in the exact same fashion as Harry Redknapp. He's not an atrocious manager, obviously. Spurs did get fourth place last year and did get to the group stages of the Champions League. But Harry's management style is such that he can be easily replaced by someone with basically no experience in football. I am forced to assume that a computer program would do the exact same job as Redknapp, if not better.

Oh, and a computer program wouldn't tell a Sky reporter to f--k off.