What Rafa wants he generally gets
You would think a manger as experienced and as wily as Redknapp would know that it is a sin to change a winning formula; however Harry felt the need to change personnel and formation, largely down to one unhappy Dutchman. Van der Vaart seemingly has a hold over his manager and what he wants he generally gets.
I’m not going to criticise Van der Vaart as a player, but his off field outbursts are starting to grate. In the wake of beating Arsenal he bemoaned how effective he could really be in the team when he is playing out on the right of midfield. Rafa clearly feels he deserves the freedom of the park and despite the team looking settled in their run of wins with Modric and Parker orchestrating the midfield and Defoe and Adebayor’s strike partnership blossoming, Van der Vaart appears left out and wanted to make his feelings known. You would think if Redknapp had any backbone about him he would have put the Dutchman in his place, but instead he totally unbalances the line up with Bale on the right, Modric on the left, just so Van der Vaart can play alongside Adebayor. Needless to say Tottenham look disjointed and out of sorts for the large part at St James’ Park; however at least Van der Vaart is happy.
I think I should make it clear that I am not questioning the ability of Van der Vaart as a player, the guy has bundles of it, but I do feel his presence in the team can be detrimental to the way we play. I mean if playing him means that Bale and Modric (arguably two of our biggest attacking threats) have to move out of their natural positions to accommodate him then something isn’t right surely. Unlike a lot of Tottenham fans I didn’t think we played well at all last season, apart from the odd European trip, and the team lacked any real cohesion as Redknapp continued to adopt this 4-5-1 system. I thought he’d woken up and seen the light when Adebayor arrived and he adopted a 4-4-2, but one major outburst in the press later and Harry has fallen back into his old ways as he looks give Rafa what he wants.
One comment Redknapp made in his post match comments at Newcastle was that he was unhappy with the way we passed the ball and how Spurs never had any control in the game in terms of possession. Funny that isn’t it Harry – I wonder if that has anything to do with Modric being out on the wing? It is like he has a blind spot with anything that Van der Vaart does, best highlighted by the way he continually allows him to take set-pieces despite how continually bad he is at them. No team last season had as many corners or freekicks around the box than we did – I’ll leave you to count how many goals actually came from them.
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Maybe I am being harsh on Van der Vaart, but I see a player who believes he is bigger than the football club and his teammates. Using the media to vent his unhappiness is very unprofessional, but he never gets penalised or criticised by his manager for doing it and worryingly it seems to get the desired results. I can’t help but feel if a Gareth Bale or Jermain Defoe adopted a similar stance then Redknapp would jump on them and condemn them for their outbursts, but with Rafa it is totally different. Harry should put the team first always, rather than to pander to the prima donnas of this world.