Rafael van der Vaart has compared and contrasted his time at Tottenham to the way things are at the club now, offering a reason why things are not going well on the pitch for Lilywhites at the moment.
Van der Vaart was part of a Tottenham side that was among the most entertaining to watch across the Premier League, boasting of players such as Ledley King, Gareth Bale, Luka Modric and other top-class stars.
While they might have not won silverware, they were much closer to competing with the best sides in the Premier League than they are now, even making it to the quarterfinal of the Champions League at the first time of asking in 2010-11.
Redknapp was eventually sacked in 2012 after Tottenham missed out on the Champions League football despite finishing fourth as a result of Chelsea winning the competition.
Rafael Van der Vaart on how things have changed at Spurs
It is fair to say that Spurs fans will give anything to see the club back in and around the top four places, given how badly things have gone this season.
Van der Vaart has now pointed out that while the club have made huge strides off the pitch, he suggested that ultimately, the first-team squad at N17 right now is not as talented as the team he was part of.
The Dutchman told talkSPORT: “At the end of the day, I think Tottenham always tried to go to the next level, but the last step is the biggest. Of course, you can build a new stadium and everything is perfect. If you compare it to my time, we were still on the Chigwell training ground and everything was smaller.
“White Hart Lane, which for me, was the best ambience I ever played in. Now, everything is big. You want to go to the next step and you don’t play like that. At the end of the day, they bought so many players for crazy money in my point of view. You can buy less players and buy better ones and pay a little bit more.
“But now these days, they pay money for normal players. At the end, it’s the talent of the group and in my days, we had so much talent it was unbelievable.”
Things are not as bad as they seem at Tottenham
Looking at just Tottenham’s league position to judge where they are at the moment is a little misleading, given the injury crisis that the club have had this season.
Spurs have the foundations of a very good squad and boast of many players in their ranks who a lot of top clubs would love to get their hands on.
As long as the Lilywhites make three or four astute additions in the summer, they have every chance of being back among the top four spots next season.