Redknapp Speaks
Spurs have won 205 corners in the Premier League this season – the second-highest number in the top flight – but have mustered just five goals from the ensuing deliveries.
That has been compounded by the fact that the Lilywhites have also conceded important goals from dead ball situations.
Manchester United took the lead at White Hart Lane recently with a Wayne Rooney header from a corner, and Cameron Jerome put Stoke ahead at the Lane on Wednesday night from a Jermaine Pennant free-kick.
Redknapp concedes that set pieces are a weak area for Spurs – and he is expecting a similar problem when Spurs face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge tomorrow.
“If you looked at us the other night against Stoke, we really had two people in our side who were over six foot - Ledley King and Younes Kaboul. We were a small small team. That is a problem,” said Redknapp.
“You look at Chelsea tomorrow and you look at the likely headers of the ball for them. They’ve got some big lads, they will score goals from set plays. [Branislav] Ivanovic is fantastic in the air, then there’s John Terry, David Luiz and Gary Cahill, depending on who plays.
“We’re not a big side and the other night the delivery was poor, which didn’t help. The ball into the box was poor against Stoke - but it’s all about having people who want to get onto the end of that ball as well.
“Certain people will get on the end of it and stick their head on it. It doesn’t matter where the ball arrives in the box, they’ll head it.
“I saw QPR play Blackburn earlier in the season, and every time a corner came in, [Chris] Samba headed the ball. It didn’t matter where the ball ended up, he ended up getting his head on it. He outjumped everybody, he’s an amazing header of the ball.
“We’ve only really got Kaboul who I would say was a great header of the ball, so we need him to get his head on one for us. Other than that we’re short.
“It’s an area we could look to improve. If we could find a couple of 6ft 4ins players who are really good and strong in the air, we would improve.
“But other than that, I think we really have to play short corners. I think we have to try to work the ball because, certainly the other night against Stoke, we were never really going to score by putting the ball into the box.
“They were too big and too strong. They probably had six or seven players who were 6ft 2ins or 6ft 3ins, and really it was a mismatch in terms of heading the ball.”
Meanwhile, Redknapp has hit out at suggestions that Tottenham’s recent dip in form is due to players being distracted by the ongoing speculation about the vacant England manager’s job.
“Absolute nonsense. That is the biggest load of nonsense I’ve ever heard in my life,” said the Spurs manager, who has been widely tipped to take over the Three Lions in the summer.
“They [the players] don’t care whether I’m the manager next year, they wouldn’t lose any sleep over that.
“Footballers are footballers. They play the game, they come in every day and train. ‘The King is dead, long live the King’. That is football.
“They don’t worry ‘oh Harry’s going to England or he’s going to go somewhere else’. It doesn’t happen that way.
“I’ve been in football all my life and it doesn’t happen that way. They don’t think about that.
“I don’t think about it either, it never enters my mind. I don’t think’ oh what’s going to happen to me at the end of the season?’
“Whatever happens to me happens to me, I don’t lose any sleep over it, one way or the other – whether I’m here, somewhere else or nowhere. That’s life.”
Follow me on Twitter @BenPearceSpurs
