FA coy on Redknapp’s vow to pick weakened team in FA Cup
Redknapp said after Wednesday night’s epic Carling Cup semi-final win over Burnley that he would now rest players for this tomorrow’s fourth-round tie with Manchester United to keep them fresh for league action.
Redknapp won the FA Cup with Portsmouth last year but has already admitted the competition is well down his list of priorities at Spurs as the club face a relegation battle.
“I will go to Old Trafford with the weakest team I can possibly find,” Redknapp said after the game.
That could be construed as a contravention of competition rules, which state that clubs must play to their full strength.
Rule 15a reads: “Each team participating in a match shall represent the full available strength of each competing club.”
However, with most Premier League clubs boasting large first-team squads, it would be impossible to argue Spurs would be breaching rules by fielding fringe players.
Redknapp is entitled to use his squad as he feels necessary, even if he could face criticism for devaluing the FA Cup. An FA spokesman said: “Undoubtedly Tottenham will be selecting a team from their first-team squad.”
Meanwhile, Jermain Defoe yesterday admitted Tottenham’s season could have descended into freefall had they been dumped out of the Carling Cup at Burnley.
Burnley were two minutes away from Wembley after wiping out a 4-1 first-leg deficit before goals from substitute Roman Pavlyuchenko and Defoe gave Spurs an aggregate 6-4 semi-final victory.
Defoe claimed Tottenham would have struggled to cope with the humiliation had Burnley held on for the famous victory they arguably deserved.
The England striker said: “It would have been a nightmare if we had lost and would have been difficult to recover to be honest.’’
“Everyone knows it’s not good enough, the manager knows and all the players know.
“But we’re going through to the final and I suppose we can just look forward to that.”
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