"If I'd offered you the chance to be in 4th place going into an FA Cup semi-final in August, you'd have jumped at the chance."
That phrase, or thereabouts, has been uttered many times over the last month or so, as Tottenham's shot at third place and seemingly tight grip on a place in next season's Champions League have slipped away from them. The reality is a club's ambitions are fluid, and for a team that were seen to be genuine title contenders in January, to scrape into the competition in fourth place should be seen as something of a failure given the position the club were in. Particularly as it would almost certainly mean finishing below Arsenal once again, a fact that Spurs fans are going to be reminded of again and again over the coming months.
I've personally remained optimistic over the last month, citing excuses for staying upbeat ranging from the fixture list (anyone would struggle playing at Anfield, the Emirates, Goodison Park, Stamford Bridge and facing United at home in the space of six games), to the fact we were due some kind of blip, or simply pointing on what looked like a fairly comfortable last eight games.
The results, and more importantly the performances over the weekend have changed much of that. Spurs look like a team that are stuck. Results against Bolton in the cup and Swansea seemed to point to a return to form, but maybe they were the anomalies. The supposedly favourable run of fixtures now looks trickier. Play like the team did against Norwich and suddenly the prospect of an away game at Q.P.R. and a resurgent Fulham side at home no longer look like foregone conclusions.
The belief, the motivation seems lost, and the responsibility for that rests with the manager. Redknapp's never been known as the most tactically astute, and in the recent run of games he's been out-thought tactically again and again. When he arrived at the club, the most important thing he did was have players in their preferred positions, a simple enough task but one that was seemingly overlooked under Ramos. This Tottenham team continually look disjointed and unbalanced, with the loss of Aaron Lennon to injury shunting either Luka Modric, Rafael van der Vaart or Niko Krancjar out to the right, where none of them prefer to play, and where they are subsequently marginalised.
With the way the team are playing at the moment, you would not surprised to see them drop out the Champions League places and get knocked out of the cup, and where would that leave them? If, as looks likely, Redknapp then takes the vacant England role then Spurs could be looking at something of an end of an era, particularly as the likes of Modric and Bale may leave in search of Champions League football. Could it really be back to square one?
