A Desperate Harry Redknapp Says Manchester City Are Bullies

"You know, if you don't drop out of Bellamy, we'll sign Palacios too and you won't get either of them.

"We'll blow you out of the water, but if you pull out of Bellamy, we'll pull out of Palacios and then we both get a player."

Apparently, this was the warning Manchester City gave Tottenham Hotspur back in January 2009, when the North London club tried to sign City's transfer target Craig Bellamy.

At the time, Spurs were interested in signing Wilson Palacios from Wigan Athletic, and as you can see above, they were warned they wouldn't get Palacios if they tried to steal Bellamy from the grasp of super-rich Manchester City.

These quotes above are from Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp, who has timed his mind games perfection with the all-important clash between these two teams takes place at Eastlands this Wednesday night.

As has been very well-documented, the encounter between City and Spurs looks certain to be the decisive factor in determining which of the two will play UEFA Champions League football next season.

That is, of course, considering we eliminate the somewhat deleterious idiosyncrasies of the Premier League from the equation, and presume both sides will win their respective matches on the last day of the season.

And it would appear that Harry Redknapp has come out with these "bullying" claims about their rivals in order to unsettle City, and initiate some sort of psychological warfare.

Whether these accusations from the Tottenham boss have much foundation is questionable, considering Manchester City had agreed to sign Nigel de Jong (who plays in the same holding midfield role as Palacios) from Hamburg two days earlier.

Reportedly, the Manchester club are investigating the possible legal action they can take against Tottenham,

It's something that isn't surprising, considering these claims can have profound effects on Manchester City's reputation and subsequent ability in the transfer market.

And it could well be an unnecessary chink to the City armour, especially if the claims are proven to be false.

True or false however, perhaps these claims from Harry Redknapp represent a desperate claim to unsettle their counterparts ahead of what is being dubbed a "£50 million" fixture that some consider to be more important than the UEFA Champions League Final itself.

After all, his Tottenham side do not have a great away record, especially against the bigger teams in the Premier League, and away defeats recently against Manchester United and Sunderland might further undermine their ability to win.

And to make it worse for Spurs, they've been short on goals in recent matches, with Jermain Defoe hitting a brick wall in the second half of the season and Roman Pavlyuchenko having a slight dip in form.

Then if you look at Manchester City, the odds stack up against Redknapp a bit more, taking into account the fact that two taxing matches against Manchester United and Arsenal aside, this team has scored 14 goals in three games, including a colossal 3-1 victory over Aston Villa.

So whilst Tottenham have a fantastic chance to claim fourth place in the Premier League, it's clear why Redknapp might be slightly anxious about his team's chances of winning or getting a valuable draw.

Therefore, could these "bullying" allegations from the Spurs boss be a somewhat desperate attempt to unsettle slightly superior opponents?

Or if not considered desperate, could these words turn out to be a stroke of psychological genius from Redknapp?