Harry’s injury list nearing crisis point
Redknapp has only two fit centre-halves available for next week’s first leg after he revealed some crushing injury news yesterday.
William Gallas is a major doubt after breaking down with a knee problem while club captain Ledley King requires a second operation on a groin injury that has ended his season after just seven appearances — the last of which was in October.
With injured duo Jonathan Woodgate and Younes Kaboul both out of the reckoning, Redknapp is hoping that Michael Dawson and Sebastien Bassong both come through tomorrow’s match at Wigan unscathed.
“We started the year with six central defenders and now we have two,” Redknapp said.
“We just have Michael Dawson and Sebastien Bassong. It’s a nightmare.”
Redknapp takes his threadbare squad to the DW Stadium tomorrow looking to kick-start Tottenham’s faltering Champions League qualification campaign after the international break.
Spurs face Roberto Martinez’s side just 72 hours before arguably the biggest game in their history and Redknapp is not happy with the way the club’s fixtures have been organised.
“We only had two senior players training last week. All the others came back this morning,” Redknapp added.
“Five of them played 90 minutes on Tuesday night, Gallas went for a scan (this morning) and one or two of them have little niggles. You can’t come out here (this morning) and start thinking about how we are going to beat Real Madrid because we have to play Wigan on Saturday.
“It’s farcical. You play Saturday, you recover on Sunday. You’re not going to have your XI ready on Sunday because you are going to have aches and pains and knocks.
“Then you travel to Madrid early Monday morning and you are not going to want to walk on to the pitch at the Bernabeu and start working on corners and set plays and shape because everyone will be looking at you.
Gareth Bale withdrew from Wales’ squad to play England last week witha hamstring injury and is now a major doubt for the club’s next two matches.
The midfielder had only just recovered from a back injury before suffering his latest knock and Redknapp plans to leave a decision on whether the star man will play until the last minute.
“Gareth worked with the fitness coaches and he looked OK. Whether he is OK to play two games this weekend is doubtful. We will have a look at that (tomorrow) and decide which way to go with it.
“We are going to leave it late. We’d love to have him fit but if he isn’t fit then we can’t play him.”
THE importance of Tottenham qualifying for next year’s Champions League was underlined today by financial results that showed the club’s revenue increased 49% during the six months following their qualification to this season’s competition.
Spurs’ interim results from June 30 to December 31, 2010 showed the club’s first ever qualification for the competition in its present guise saw their revenue increase to £79.8million (€90m) compared to the £53.3m (€60.3m) they recorded at the same stage last year.
In total, the club posted a profit of £4.2m (€4.7m) compared to the £6.1m (€6.9m) loss made during the same period in 2009.
But Spurs’ operating costs rose from £48.6m (€55m) to £61.5m (€69.6m) for the last six months of 2010 — an increase of 25%.
Among the other good news out of the financial report is that Champions League qualification has seen merchandise sales increase by 22% and sponsorship and corporate hospitality revenue grew from £12.7m (€14.3m) to £16m (€18.1m).
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