SOCCER:HARRY REDKNAPP did his best to sound optimistic. The Tottenham manager made the right noises about his team being so close to a top-four finish. He even suggested they had thrown away a golden opportunity.

The door has been pushed shut by Manchester City and it will be locked tight this evening if Tottenham fail to win at Eastlands.

“I know people in the right positions (at City), who have said, ‘The one thing we couldn’t offer was Champions League football’,” Redknapp said. “But they tell me they’ve got one or two players signed already who’ll blow your brains out. They’re not going to stop until they win the championship and even the Champions League.

“They don’t need the money. The man from Abu Dhabi has got so much money . . . I mean, it isn’t like money to him, is it?

“City can be a real force next year. They’ve got a strong squad which is only going to get better because they’ve got unlimited funds to buy anybody they want and they can pay the wages.

“ . . . Man City are going to spend another £200 million, probably, this summer, Liverpool are going to improve, so it’s very hard to get into that top four . . . very, very difficult.”

Do not talk to Redknapp about where it has gone wrong for Tottenham. To him it has been another richly encouraging season, underpinned by exciting football. He is fond of pointing out Tottenham have not exactly been perennial Champions League contenders in the past.

In terms of the demise of their top-four hopes – even if Tottenham win at City, they would remain big outsiders – Redknapp has his theories. They include the mental and physical demands of the club’s Champions League debut; the strikers’ lack of Premier League goals; the frustration in the January transfer window and the failure to see off the teams at the foot of the table.

But Redknapp feels that the key has been the inability of Gareth Bale and Rafael van der Vaart to maintain their sparkling form from the first part of the season. Bale will now miss the final three matches with the ankle ligament rupture suffered against Blackpool on Saturday. The player is expected to be fit for the start of pre-season.

“Gareth was the key. He was flying and, suddenly, we lost him for quite a long time (for six weeks from January 22nd). He hasn’t really come back in the same form.

“In the last couple of months he hasn’t got over the injury that he had before and it’s taken a toll on him. Rafa has done great for us but, in fairness, he’s tapered off after a hard season. In the main he hasn’t been as good as he was early on.”

Redknapp will seek to add “one or two players that can make the difference” in the summer and he added that “you don’t always have to spend big money”.

Mancherster United have proved that, he said, with the signing of Javier Hernandez for about €8 million prior to this season, while Redknapp also lauded his Bosman capture of William Gallas. There is little doubt, however, the big bucks would help.