Harry Redknapp has described the race for a Premier League top four finish as wide open in the wake of his Tottenham side's emphatic 3-0 defeat of Manchester City at White Hart Lane.
Four days after he had been forced to explain Spurs shock home defeat to relegation threatened Wolves, Redknapp found himself in the altogether more comfortable position of mulling over his team's prospects of claiming a place in next season's Champions League.
And while Redknapp refused to install Spurs as one of the favourites to break into the leading group, he was adamant that they had as good a chance as any of the clutch of teams currently trailing top two Manchester United and Chelsea.
"Anything is possible this year," said the manager after watching a Niko Kranjcar double and Jermain Defoe's 13th league goal of the season seal the points.
"The champions will come from Chelsea and Manchester United. But after that it is up for grabs. It's going to be tight and you can tell that from the recent results.
"Look at Arsenal at Burnley. Most people would have expected Arsenal to win there after what they did at Liverpool on Sunday but they have been held to a draw.
"We just need to become more consistent and get results and we will be in there with the rest of them."
Redknapp would like to strengthen his squad, particularly in defence with Sebastien Bassong due to join up with Cameroon for the African Cup of Nations along with Benoit Assou-Ekotto while Ledley King and Jonathan Woodgate remain sidelined with injury.
But the manager insists he will not be drawn into any panic buying and has been told by chairman Daniel Levy he must sell before he can buy.
Redknapp said: "It's all about getting the right players.
Sometimes you can have the star players who don't perform for you." City manager Mark Hughes was disappointed with the performance of his side, who have now won only one of their last ten league matches.
Hughes has maintained his side has been playing well but conceded their performance against Spurs wasn't satisfactory and claims his side's problem lie in defence.
"Sometimes you just have to hold your hands up," said the City boss. "We can't have any excuses.
"We can say we were missing some key players but we had a string enough side to get a result here."
He added: "At the moment we are having problems dealing with balls that come into our box." Hughes's efforst to resolve his defensive frailties haven't been helped by the loss of Joleon Lescott with a knee injury.
And with Kolo Toure also on African Cup of Nations duty next month, the manager admitted that his principal January target will be a new defender.
"We are struggling at the back at the moment. Joleon is out for up to eight weeks and Kolo Toure is going away in January for the African Cup of Nations.
"So you can see where we need to strengthen."
.jpg)
.jpg)
