Harry Redknapp has claimed that Nuno Espirito Santo is not to blame for Tottenham’s struggles so far this season, insisting the same players failed to fight for Pochettino when he was sacked.
Nuno has not had the best of starts to his Tottenham career and the Portuguese coach has come under pressure following embarrassing defeats to Crystal Palace, Chelsea and Arsenal.
Some sources have indicated that the Spurs players have not fully bought into the former Wolves coach’s methods while other reports have claimed the 47-year-old is already fighting to save his job.
However, Redknapp has questioned why Nuno is being blamed for the performances when the same set of players also let down Mauricio Pochettino and Jose Mourinho.
The former Spurs boss wrote in his column for The Sun: “I’m as baffled as anyone about what’s gone wrong at Tottenham – but certain about the one thing they shouldn’t do to put it right.
“And that is to listen to all those who think Nuno Espirito Santo should carry the can for how poor they’ve been in the last three league games.
“Of course, Spurs should be doing far better but pointing the finger at Nuno and plonking it all on the manager is unfair and too easy.
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“It makes me laugh when people say how much these players – and the bulk of them are still there – loved playing under Mauricio Pochettino.
“Well, if they loved him that much, you’d have thought they might have tried a bit harder and he wouldn’t have got the sack in the first place.
“They weren’t exactly pulling up any trees in his last season, any more than they were under Jose Mourinho. Jose is up there with the best managers around and I honestly felt they had a squad to challenge for the title, but he couldn’t unlock it either.
“There are certain times at certain clubs when you just can’t do anything about it, no matter who is in charge. That’s Tottenham right now. You can talk about tactics but when the situation is like this you want leaders, you want players standing up and putting in the effort… and there’s something badly missing.
“Poch couldn’t get a tune out of them in the end, Jose couldn’t and Nuno is finding the same. Is that because all three of them are no good? Of course not.”
Redknapp urged Nuno not to chop and change his team too much despite the results not going the way he would have wanted.
The 74-year-old insisted the Spurs head coach has to prioritise getting belief into the Tottenham players, who are now low on confidence.
He added: “The problems at Spurs have to go deeper than the manager. For a start, the players obviously aren’t as good as we all thought.
What Nuno must not do is start chopping and changing every week. He has to find a system he wants them to play, work on it and stick with it.
“You hear talk about managers being great coaches, but I can tell you the best ones rarely are.
“It’s not down to something clever on the training ground or working on special patterns. Sir Alex Ferguson was the best because he knew how to build a team, how to fit the jigsaw together, how to get the best players in the best positions and how to motivate.
“What Nuno has to do is get the belief back into the players – and that isn’t easy. It’s also about getting the belief back into yourself because when you lose, you do ask questions.
“But stopping the rot isn’t simple and it can take the strangest of things to spark a change in fortunes, as I found out over the years.”
Spurs Web Opinion
In the social media era, people often prescribe to binary points of view. It is not a case of it either being Nuno’s fault or the players’. There is certainly an element of both to it.
I am not surprised with Redknapp’s view on the importance of head coaches/managers as his greatest strength was always man-management rather than tactical nous.
However, I do believe that football management is a field that has been revolutionised over the last decade. These days, the best managers (i.e Klopp, Tuchel, Pochettino, Guardiola etc) are often also fantastic training ground coaches.
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