AC Milan v Tottenham Hotspur: Feelgood factor sees Spurs dreaming of bright future

Harry Redknapp is convinced Tottenham stand on the brink of a glorious new era.

Redknapp took the reins at White Hart Lane in 2008 when the club was deeply entrenched in a Barclays Premier League relegation scrap.

But, two-and-a-half years later, Redknapp has turned Spurs into one of the most feared teams in the top flight and they are now rubbing shoulders with Europe’s biggest clubs after finishing fourth last season to qualify for the Champions League.

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The next chapter in what has been a remarkable debut in Europe’s premier club competition sees Spurs take on AC Milan at the San Siro, where Gareth Bale scored his famous hat-trick against Inter Milan last October.

Redknapp will have to do without the flying Welshman tonight due to a back injury but, even without him, Tottenham are rightly confident of beating the Italian club.

A feelgood factor currently surrounds the club, who underlined their ambitions by launching audacious £35m-plus bids to sign Sergio Aguero and Giuseppe Rossi on transfer deadline day.

The Londoners have not won a league championship for half a century and their last European triumph came in the 1984 UEFA Cup, but Redknapp is happy with the direction in which the club is heading.

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When asked if Spurs stood on the brink of a new successful era, Redknapp said: “The opportunity is there, for sure.

“If we keep on bringing the top players we can achieve whatever we want.

“The owners are more important than I am as the manager and I think that they want to compete.

“The transfer window came and we were willing to go and buy a top player but we just couldn’t find a player that we wanted.

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“It was difficult but if the right people came along then I think the club would sit down and do it.

“If Tottenham did that then the sky is the limit for us over the next few years.”

Spurs flew to Milan occupying that all-important fourth place having picked up their third straight win at Sunderland on Saturday.

They may be 12 points off leaders Manchester United, but Redknapp believes that with the likes of Bale, Rafael van der Vaart and Luka Modric in his squad, the days where his team were considered easy fodder to the likes of the United and neighbours Arsenal are over.

“There is nothing between us and Arsenal,” Redknapp said.

“We are right on the coat-tails of Manchester City too.

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“We are above Chelsea and we are not a million miles off from Man United. A few years ago we would be miles behind them clubs.”

Bale’s absence is a big blow for Tottenham given his inspirational role in their 4-3 defeat here four months ago as well as his influence in the 3-1 victory at White Hart Lane in the reverse group fixture in November.

Redknapp also has worries over Peter Crouch, who has had an epidural injection in an attempt to cure his back complaint.

But Spurs should have van der Vaart available after he recovered from a calf strain and Modric looked sprightly in training last night despite Redknapp’s assertion that the Croatian would not start having undergone an operation to remove his appendix just a fortnight ago.

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Bale’s second-half hat-trick was not enough to get a point from their last match here, but Redknapp views the match as a turning point in their season which inspired his team to top Group A and set up tonight’s last-16 glamour tie.

“It was almost like a victory for us that night when we got beat 4-3,” he said.

“If we had got beaten by six or seven at half-time as we could have easily done, that could have gone on to destroy our whole season.

“We thought, ‘If we can do that with 10 men we are capable of being a threat to any team’, so it was a big night for us.

“It was very important to getting us to where we are now.”

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Tottenham looked set for a drubbing in October’s pulsating clash, when they went 4-0 down against Rafael Benitez’s men and were reduced to 10 men after goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes was shown a red card.

Redknapp admitted Spurs’ defending was poor that night, but thinks curbing their attacking instincts could prove costly and will therefore be instructing his team to be positive in front of the expected 80,000-plus crowd tonight.

“It’s difficult to change our approach too much because I can’t ask people who are attacking players to play defensively,” Redknapp added.

“I want to get the best out of what I’ve got so I can’t ask Aaron Lennon to do a defensive job because it’s not in his nature and it’s not in Niko Kranjcar’s nature either.”