In their efforts to be polite, the FA have hurt Tottenham and England | Daniel Taylo

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<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/65780?ns=guardian&pageName=In+their+efforts+to+be+polite%2C+the+FA+have+hurt+Tottenham+and+England++%7C%3AArticle%3A1737904&ch=Football&c3=Obs&c4=Harry+Redknapp%2CEngland+football+team%2CTottenham+Hotspur+%28Football%29%2CFA+%28Football+Association%29%2CEuro+2012+%28Football%29%2CFootball%2CSport&c5=Euro+2008+Football%2CPremier+League&c6=Daniel+Taylor&c7=12-Apr-28&c8=1737904&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Football&c13=&c25=Sport+blog&c30=content&c42=Sport&h2=GU%2FSport%2FFootball%2FHarry+Redknapp" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">If the FA had approached Harry Redknapp in February, Spurs would be no worse off than they are now</p><p>They stopped taking questions about it at Tottenham Hotspur's press conferences back in February. Rules are in place about what can be asked and what is off limits. Which is not the way Harry Redknapp usually works, but understandable now the England job is weighing him down like a sack of bricks.</p><p>On Sunday it is 81 days since that almost freakishly entwined February afternoon when, on one side of London, Redknapp was walking free from his tax evasion case and, at the other end of the Jubilee line, Fabio Capello was putting in place his resignation. Since then, Spurs have played 10 league games and taken nine points. Only two clubs – Aston Villa and Wolves – have a more calamitous record. It is dangerously close to relegation form from a team that includes some of the most exquisite passers of the ball in their profession.</p><p>Redknapp maintains it is nothing to do with the subject we are no longer allowed to discuss in his presence. He has yet, though, to offer a feasible explanation, or even the semblance of a story, to lead us away from thinking it is intrinsically linked with the strange relationship that now exists between himself and the Football Association. Like two teenagers eyeing one another up at a school disco, working out how to make their move. Liking what they see but getting nowhere fast.</p><p>The eyelash fluttering has gone on for so long it is threatening to sabotage Tottenham's season. Which is ironic, because this is precisely the reason the FA's headhunters decided to hold off in the first place, so anxious were they not to be accused of disrupting what was shaping up to be an exceptional year for Spurs. It turns out they have done that anyway, and you have to wonder whether the damage would have been any worse had the FA just had the gumption to approach the Spurs chairman, Daniel Levy, and not let it drag on.</p><p>This is not the first time something like this has happened. Bordeaux had a nine-point lead at the top of Ligue 1 midway through the 2009-10 season, with 14 wins from 19 games. They had sailed through their Champions League group, beating Bayern Munich home and away. They had won the previous season without a single home defeat and were daring to wonder whether the treble was on. "We all believe we can do it," the defender Matthieu Chalmé said in the final week of January.</p><p>Then Jean-Pierre Escalettes, the president of the French Football Federation, went public with his belief that Laurent Blanc had strong credentials to coach the national team after the World Cup. Blanc, he said, was "an exemplary man" and a "good candidate" to replace Raymond Domenech.</p><p>Bordeaux went into freefall, winning five of their next 19 league games. They finished sixth, outside the Europa League positions, with eight points from the final 10 matches. Lyon knocked them out of the Champions League and Marseille beat them in the final of the Coupe de la Ligue. "It was like a plane crash," the midfielder Fernando remembers.</p><p>A similar thing happened when Sir Alex Ferguson was supposed to be retiring from Manchester United after the 2001-02 season. The players, Ferguson says, "relaxed." They had won the league by 10 points the previous year. Now they finished third, 10 points behind Arsenal. United's nine defeats that season is their highest number of the past 20 years.</p><p>Ferguson has believed ever since that a form of complacency can set in when a manager is planning to leave. Insecurity, too. At Bordeaux, key players such as Marouane Chamakh and Yoann Gourcuff started wondering whether they should hang around if Blanc was moving on. The most cautionary part of this story for Spurs is that the 2009 French champions have never really recovered. Last season they finished seventh. The current side are eighth. Even now, they won't talk publicly about the reasons everything started to fall away. But everyone knows.</p><p>In Tottenham's case, the FA have at least tried to do the right thing. It is a mess, though, and you have to wonder whether they had to be so paranoid about Levy's reaction to an early approach. This is, after all, how football usually works, as Levy knows only too well, and if Spurs had complained it would only have opened them to allegations of hypocrisy. Juande Ramos had resigned from Sevilla and was on a flight to London within 24 hours of Martin Jol's sacking at White Hart Lane in October 2007.</p><p>These are the moments when the FA should have a fully integrated plan for Euro 2012. Instead, we have a blur of confusion and uncertainty. The stand-in manager, Stuart Pearce, is talking about naming his squad on Thursday week. Spurs have gone to pot and the man at the middle of it all is wondering, like of the rest of us, when on earth the FA are finally going to do something about it. A compensation package has to be sorted out, salaries, back-room appointments, logistical arrangements. This isn't going to happen overnight.</p><p>On 8 February, walking out of Southwark crown court, Redknapp was in charge of a team in third place, being talked about as credible title challengers. A few hours later the news broke that Capello had gone and, within minutes, the bookmakers had announced they were not taking any more bets on Redknapp to succeed him as England manager. Since then, there has been a (17-point) swing in favour of Arsenal and (11) for Newcastle. Spurs have dropped out of the Champions League places and the FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea was an ordeal they would rather airbrush from their history. Together, it has cost the club potentially tens of millions of pounds.</p><p>The FA, meanwhile, carry on telling us they are happy "parachuting in" Capello's successor, fixing a smile and telling us that it is perfectly normal and, honestly, nothing to worry about. Redknapp, I was told week, is "exasperated in the extreme". The delays have done nobody any good.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/harry-redknapp">Harry Redknapp</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/england">England</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/tottenham-hotspur">Tottenham Hotspur</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/fa">The FA</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/euro2012">Euro 2012</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/danieltaylor">Daniel Taylor</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> &copy; 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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