• Chairman reluctant to sanction move for David
James
• Manager turns focus to Lewis, Westwood and Loach
Joe Lewis impressed Harry Redknapp in the FA Cup
and claims he has been offered first option on the Peterborough
goalkeeper. Photograph: Jed Leicester/PA
Harry Redknapp is monitoring the progress of a clutch of
promising goalkeepers, chief among them Scott Loach of Watford, as
he considers whether to sign a replacement for Carlo Cudicini and
he encounters difficulties in striking a deal for David James.
The Tottenham Hotspur manager had wanted James, the Portsmouth
and England goalkeeper, to move to White Hart Lane at the end of
the summer transfer window only for his chairman, Daniel Levy, to
intervene. Levy told Redknapp that in Heurelho Gomes and Cudicini
he already had two good-quality and expensively paid goalkeepers
and he would have to make do with them.
Cudicini, who Redknapp signed from Chelsea last January, is now
a long-term absentee with the career-threatening wrist and pelvis
injuries that he suffered in a motorcycle accident in November and,
with Redknapp having little faith in Ben Alnwick, Gomes's current
deputy, the manager has cast his eye for fresh blood.
James would welcome a transfer to Tottenham – he is on record as
saying that "it would be good for my England chances to join an
upwardly mobile club". But Redknapp knows that any move for James
would most likely shatter the confidence of Gomes, who can blow hot
and cold and, at present, is hot.
James's substantial weekly wage is another stumbling block while
Levy is unwilling to pay Portsmouth's likely asking price of £1m,
particularly as James will be 40 in August.
The goalkeeper has struggled with injuries recently but now
feels fit enough to return to the Portsmouth team for Saturday's
Premier League match at Fulham. He has played only one match since
injuring his calf in the warm-up before the Stoke City defeat on 22
November.
Redknapp admires Loach, Coventry City's Keiren Westwood and Joe
Lewis of Peterborough United. Loach played for the England
Under-21s in the European Championship final against Germany last
June and, although he suffered an evening to forget in the 4-0
defeat, has impressed at club level. Lewis, who at 22, is a year
older than Loach, was also part of that Under-21 squad. He played
well in Peterborough's FA Cup defeat at Tottenham on Saturday,
preventing the 4-0 scoreline from becoming a humiliation and
Redknapp said that Barry Fry, the Peterborough director of
football, had come into the Tottenham dressing room afterwards to
grant him first option on Lewis.
"Harry and I go back 30 years so we always have a bit of this,"
said Fry, with a smile. "We paid a club-record £510,000 to sign Joe
[from Norwich last January] and he is on a five-and-a-half-year
contract.,"He will only get better by playing regularly with us. He
is on everyone's list, everyone has had a look at him but there
have been no bids. We have no interest in selling him."
Westwood, 25, has forced his way into Giovanni Trapattoni's
Republic of Ireland squad and he has been on Redknapp's radar for
some time.