Soccer:Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp insisted tonight he was disappointed to be knocked out of the Europa League, despite clearly concentrating his efforts on the Premier League this season.
Goals from Steven Pienaar, Andros Townsend Jermain Defoe and Harry Kane gave Tottenham a resounding 4-0 win over Shamrock Rovers at Tallaght Stadium, but Rubin Kazan's 1-1 draw at PAOK Salonika meant their campaign ended this evening.
Recent defeats to Rubin Kazan and PAOK Salonika meant Tottenham were big outsiders to progress from Group A before Thursday night's match. They had to beat Shamrock and hope PAOK beat Rubin in Greece while the Londoners also had to overturn a five-goal goal difference the Russians held over them.
At half-time, Spurs were on course to progress, however, with Rubin 1-0 down and reduced to 10 men while Redknapp's team were 3-0 up. Another two goals would have been enough had the result in Thessaloniki stayed the same, but Rubin equalised, meaning Spurs were heading out, regardless of their margin of victory in Ireland.
"We came and did the job we had to do but when you are in a situation like we were tonight and you are relying on another score, it is always difficult," he said. "At half-time, with the Russian team losing 1-0 having gone down to 10 men very early in the first half, I thought maybe they will be beaten 2-0 or 3-0, and we would just need to win by three or four, but I had a feeling they would draw."
Redknapp has never hidden his dislike of the Europa League, but tonight insisted he was disappointed to be exiting the competition.
"It was disappointing. I want to win every game. We haven't not gone through for lack of trying," he said. "Maybe if I had played players like Scott Parker and Rafa van der Vaart we might have sneaked through, but we might not have won 10 out of 11 league games though."
The 64-year-old also played down an altercation he had with the home fans, which resulted in him appearing to make the angry gesture towards them. The Spurs boss, who was this week warned by the Football Association over his future conduct after making critical comments about referee Chris Foy, tried to downplay the apparent incident after the game.
When asked if had made an obscene gesture towards the Rovers fans, Redknapp said: "Not really. Did I make an "obscene" gesture? No, I didn't make... No."
Redknapp had taken heavy criticism from the Rovers fans all night, but tried again to play down the incident by saying: "I have spent enough time in Ireland to know what lovely people they are. If you go and meet them afterwards they are probably lovely people. But they get together and shout a load of nonsense and that is football. That's life. I don't hold any grudges."
