The Half-Truths You Have To Tell The Media

Until Sunday's win over Swansea City, Tottenham Hotspur went five league matches without a win. It seemed fairly obvious that Spurs were back to having some confidence in themselves and playing decent football when they got the 0-0 draw away to Chelsea, but they finally looked something like the Spurs of earlier in the year against the Swans. Against a midfield that matches up favorably with Spurs, both in talent and style, they came away with a 3-1 win and looked good doing it.

Harry Redknapp, of course, never thought Spurs had any problems. The team was simply unlucky in all of their bad performances and was always going to bounce back. It's not just typical Harry-speak, but typical manager-speak. This is the stuff you 'have to tell the media'. 'Arry's quotes after the jump.

From the club website, here's what Harry had to say about the bad run of form and Sunday's bounceback performance. Emphasis is mine.

"I never felt we played badly, we were just unlucky," reflected Harry. "We're playing well and we had a good week with Chelsea, Bolton and Swansea. I've been at clubs where the players look like their confidence has gone, but this lot have been fantastic, knocking the ball around in training and I just felt we were playing well and needed a little luck. I never had any doubts."

Does anyone believe that Tottenham never played badly, and that Harry never had any doubts about whether or not Tottenham was going to be a top-four team? I think he's completely full of it, but how can he say anything else?

For all of Harry's faults, he's great at this kind of thing. The man can't read a book, but he could sell manure to a pig farmer.