- May 8, 2005
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- #21
Redknapp got lucky here, as I doubt he would have featured if it were not for the horrendous injury list that lead to his inclusion for Milan.
I worry that Redknapp and all his yes men watched Sandro in training for nearly 6 months before having to be default playing him in Milan. What hope is there for any other promising youngsters when your manager is more than happy to sign Phil Neville ahead of giving you the opportunity.
I'm sorry, but are you seriously claiming that you thought he should playing in the starting 11 after his first few appearances in the league? He struggled to settle in, and sure he came in because of injury but that was because we had players ahead of him playing better.
Also Neville has been playing right back this season, and I can't see that we would have bought him in to play in any other position than there.
Sandro came via our link up with Santos and was on our radar before Redknapp took the reins. I think there's good evidence that Harry only likes to sign players he's watched with his own eyes, we also know he's a gut instinct kind of guy.
For that reason Harry will always be after Premier League players or European players who he can catch a quick flight to go and see.
Harry also likes the veterans, he's made a career out of recycling big team's cast-offs in the latter stages of their careers. In fact he takes great pride in that aspect of his talent spotting.
On the plus side he's pretty good at it.
On the negative side, we won't be going for players that play in the far off leagues, we won't go for players that come from outside Harry's chain of command. He won't play players that come from outside the chain unless forced to. We will go for a lot of 30 somethings, we will pay over the odds (Keane, Defoe, Palacios) and we will have to wait for injuries in order for Harry to give some of our squad a go.
Sandro came in because Ian Broomfield recommended him, and our partnership with Internacional, not Santos, most definitely helped. We would not have bought him if Harry didn't think he was good enough.
Secondly, whilst Harry has bought older and experienced players, he has also been known throughout his career for giving youth a chance. At West Ham he gave loads of young players a chance, and he has done the same every where else. He's not just going to chuck in young players that aren't ready. If there is a better more experienced player he'd be a fool not to play him.
It's very easy in hindsight to say he should have played Sandro all season, or Bale should have had more games before Assou-Ekotto got injured last season, but really, none of us would have picked either of them, because they hadn't deserved it.