Tottenham manager, Harry Redknapp, says that Gareth Bale has the potential to become the best left back in the entire Premier League.

Bale has managed to hold down a regular first team place in the Spurs side and has managed to create a significant impact. He is now part of the Spurs side and the manager does not see him being dropped for a long time.

Bale is also a regular international for the Wales senior side and is growing in experience and stature all the time. It could mark the start of a realising in potential that everyone has said he has for a long time.

Redknapp said: “Gareth is playing superbly, he’s been in great form. I didn’t want to shift him from the left-back position because he’s been outstanding there but we didn’t have many spare bodies at Fulham.”

“He can play wide left or left-back anyway, he can do both jobs and he was a real threat. He’s in great form and is full of confidence.”

“He’s got bigger and stronger and people forget he’s still only a young lad. He’s toughened up a lot, his attitude is stronger, he’s physically stronger, mentally stronger and he has terrific ability, pace, a great left foot – he’s got everything.”

“I think he will go on to be one of the best left-backs or left-sided players in the modern game.”

Spurs are still fighting on a number of fronts but the thing they will want more than any thing by the end of the season is to hang onto fourth place and break into the Champions League for the first time.

This will be difficult though because there are many teams who are currently trying to achieve this. Bale will play a big role in the run in if Spurs are going to get into fourth place and hold the fort.

What Bale does so well is defend from the first part of the game to the last. He then looks to try and get forward to provide another attacking outlet whenever he can. His form has started to mirror Chelsea’s Ashley Cole when he plays at his best.

Bale also has a deadly left foot, which Spurs have been using to deliver balls from free kicks and set plays. Bale would probably be the first to admit that he does not score enough goals but that will come with time and patience.

Since he made the move from Southampton, a former club of Redknapp, he has grown slowly. It is only recently that he has managed to burst into the side and make big contributions.

Whether or not he can hold this down and continue it over a longer period of time remains to be seen.

He has become a crowd favourite at White Hart Lane and there do not seem to be any signs of Bale’s form stopping just yet. Provided he stays injury free, the future is bright.

The Football Association is set to hold onto fees, which will keep Portsmouth from going a long way to paying off their creditors.

Portsmouth have accumulated prize money from playing in the domestic cup competition and face a reunion with former boss, Harry Redknapp, in the semi finals.

They will not be getting the money because the FA does not see it as fair to Portsmouth’s rivals, when the club owes over £3 million in unpaid fees to other clubs for a number of players that have changed hands.

There does not seem to be a single bit of good news on the horizon for the south coast club and this will just add to the woe. After going into administration the club are now fighting off the possibility of being dissolved from all angles.

Club veteran, Hermann Hreidarsson, said: “It’s been negative vibes, doom and gloom all season. But when you go over the white line, you like to think you can focus only on playing football. We’ve done that in our last few games.”

“Getting to Wembley with everything that has been going on is a greater achievement than getting there two years ago. Possibly there’s the same vibe this time that we are going to win the Cup. When we were in the semi-finals last time, it was ours to lose. Now it’s ours to win.”

Things could change for Pompey very quickly if they can get their act together and remember that they are still in a highly rated domestic competition.

The club could become the first in history to have points deducted, be relegated and qualify for Europe all in the same year. However, the chance of this seems remote when you think about some of the quality still left in the FA Cup.

Pompey fans will probably be hoping that in a strange way the club does not qualify for European football next season. This is because it would put the club right into the spot light all over again.

This would come at a key time, when the club needs to be consolidating in a financial area. This will mean selling players during the summer if they still exist. This would leave the squad thin and the calibre of some European teams would be too strong for Pompey to over come.

They won the FA Cup in 2008 and it would be fantastic if the current playing side could pull together and give the loyal fans something to shout about as they have been suffering all season long.

Stranger things have happened in football and there would probably be a few Pompey fans with smiles on faces and sighs of disbelief at what a roller coaster ride there season has become.

Avram Grant still has his work cut out and the club remains in danger. However, it’s probably only this club that could keep emotions and expectations high at such a terrible stage.

Tottenham, Stoke, Reading and Aston Villa each secured their passage to the FA Cup quarter final on Wednesday night after Wednesday night’s fifth-round replays.

On a night when all eyes were on Europe’s premier club competition the UEFA Champions League, there were four fifth-round ties to be settled in England’s premier cup competition.

Tottenham 4 Bolton 0

Bolton paid the price for not finishing off the job in the first meeting between these side as they were demolished 4-0 by a rampant Tottenham Hotspur.

The sides drew 1-1 in the Reebok Stadium first time out, but Harry Redknapp’s face proved too strong at White Hart Lane with in-form striker Roman Pavlyuchenko continued his new found confidence with his second brace in consecutive games.

The Russian opened the scoring after 23 minutes and, with a pair of own goals courtesy of Jussi Jaaskalainen (35) and Andy O’Brien (47) sandwiched in between, he rounded of the night with his second three minutes from full time.

Tottenham’s next task in the cup is to overcome Roy Hodgson’s Fulham, but they’ll have to do so at Craven Cottage.

Stoke City 3 Man City 1 (AET)

At the Britannia, meanwhile, Stoke and Man City met for the third time in twelve days and for the third time the pair were deadlocked at 1-1 after 90 minutes. It took until the 79th minute for the opener through Dave Kitson, only for Craig Bellamy to grab an instant reply two minutes later.

Emmanuel Adebayor then received his marching orders for an apparent shove on Ryan Shawcross and with the full time whistle sounding soon after, extra time was required to decide the tie. Stoke took full advantage of the extra man in the extra 30 minutes, as first Shawcross headed the Potters into the lead on 95 minutes before Tuncay Sanli put the game beyond doubt four minutes later.

Stoke’s reward is a trip to Stamford Bridge where they will face holders, and tournament favourites, Chelsea.

Aston Villa 3 Crystal Palace 1

There were penalties galore at Villa Park as Crystal Palace’s cup run came to an end as they went down 3-1 to Aston Villa. The home side took the lead shortly before half-time through Gabby Agbonlahor’s well taken header.

In-form Palace midfielder Darren Ambrose got his 17th goal of the season from the spot on 73 minutes as the Londoners looked to be taking their Premier League opponents into extra time but it wasn’t to be as two more penalties spoiled their night.

Mathew Lawrence was the guilty player as he brought down John Carew inside the area and the big Norwegian picked himself up and scored from the resulting penalty to send Villa on their to the quarters.

There was still time for another penalty, however, as Lawrence once again brought down the Villa striker for a second time and for a second time Carew rose to his feet to find the back of the net.

Villa will now travel to Reading, who also won on Wednesday night, for their quarter final tie.

West Brom 2 Reading 3 (AET)

Elsewhere, Reading’s remarkable FA Cup run continued as they once again dumped out higher ranked opposition, this time West Brom were the victims in a 3-2 defeat at the Hawthorns.

Robert Koran gave the Baggies an early lead before Jimmy Kebe levelled for Reading just three minutes later. Koran restored the lead for West Brom, who are riding high in the Championship as opposed to Reading’s relegation fight in the same division, but they were be denied by a late equaliser.

That came via the right foot of Brian Howard, sending the away section in the Hawthorns Stadium wild. Extra-time beckoned and a deflated Baggies side struggled in the extra half hour with Gylfi Sigurdsson grabbing his tenth of the season with an emphatic long range drive to seal progression.

Harry Redknapp will face more questions from the police this week over transfer dealings he was involved in during his time at Portsmouth. The main focus of the latest enquiry is the deal that was done to take Peter Crouch from Aston Villa to Portsmouth.

The main fuss is being caused over an account that the chairman of Portsmouth, Milan Manderic, had set up outside the restrictions of tax within the United Kingdom. This meant that money used to pay for Crouch had not been taxed and leaves Redknapp with another dodgy transfer association to over come.

He said: “The club paid me 5 per cent [for Crouch]. I went back to Milan because I had signed a new contract that said 5 per cent but I said, ‘No, when I signed Crouch it was 10 per cent’, and Milan said, ‘OK, Harry, I accept that’.”

“Milan never had a bank account in England so he said, ‘The only way I can do it is from my American account and I will have to open an account for you in Monaco.’ I said, ‘I don’t want an account in Monaco, I just want it in England, I don’t want the money over there.’ I said [to Mandaric], ‘What about the tax?’ He said the tax had been paid in America. But just in case it wasn’t, when I transferred the money back, my accountants got straight on to the Revenue and told them the money was being transferred from Monaco. If there is a tax issue, they’re aware of it.”

Manderic has been reported as writing to the officials in charge of the inquest: “It’s got nothing to do with bonuses. Bonuses were paid from Portsmouth to their accounts in England. It was a certain investment for Harry in America and I helped him. It’s got nothing to do with the football club.”

Regardless of the way it is looked at, the point is that Redknapp has always had this sort of association when it comes to transfer dealings. He does not appear to have a clean slate and these rumours and investigations will only serve to hamper the good work he is trying to do at Tottenham.

The sooner the matter is done with the better and hopefully a bit of logic and common sense can be used to prevail over things that would drastically damage the career of any of the individuals invokved.

Ashley Young is in some extraordinary news today with reports saying that he has demanded Martin O’Neill shows some ambition and forward thinking at the club or he will leave. The Aston Villa star is said to be growing frustrated at the lack of progress the club has made since starting the Premier League in blinding form last season.

Villa have been one of the very few talked about clubs in the transfer market so far and Young wants some ambition to be shown if he is to commit his future to the club. Villa are now an established top six club but the challenge is breaking into the top four and this is something they have got close to doing but have failed on so many occasions.

Villa have already let Gareth Barry leave to go and join Manchester City and with no clear signs of any replacements walking through the door any time soon, Young could make good of the reports that have been saying it is only a matter of time before he joins Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham revolution in London. There are also rumours that Young has been linked to Chelsea who are looking for a high class winger, should they fail in their attempts to sign Franck Ribery of Bayern Munich.

Unless big changes are made quickly then it would be hard for Young and Villa to turn down any lucrative approach from another club. Young would not be worried about leaving the club behind because at current he feels there is little progress being made and that the future of his career may be better served if he moves on to another challenge.

The problem for Martin O’Neill is that he is in a situation where he has to sell before he can buy. If the top clubs in England keep missing out on the players that are joining Real Madrid then they will be forced to look at more realistic domestic options. This could mean that Villa would get a big fee for Young and leave O’Neill with roughly £40 million to spend in reorganising the playing staff.

However, this amount of money will not be as great if Young does stay on and this is the thing that Villa have to weigh up as a club. They need to address how vocal Young is being in his frustration and whether a move would be in the best interests for all of the parties concerned.

It would be remarkable if they did let him go because Young has the ability to put a football onto a ten pence coin and this is the sort of ability that is so priceless in football. He has become one of the deadliest set piece takers of a football and has been knocking on the door of Fabio Capello’s England side for a very long time.

This is the other thing that Young has to consider. If he gets a bigger move, will it mean that his international chances are increased? Doubtless is the fact that he would want to become an international regular and he currently feels that if he stays at Villa then this may not happen.

Tottenham Hotspur have turned their attention to try and sign Aston Villa versatile player, Nigel Reo-Coker. Spurs had been reported as trying to track Arjen Robben of Real Madrid, a high class player who has been put on the transfer list. However, with a number of clubs interested in him, Harry Redknapp has been forced to turn his attention to the domestic transfer market.

Reo-Coker has been proved a very agile player who can play in a wide variety of positions. This could have been the club’s undoing because Reo-Coker is said to have been getting increasingly frustrated by Martin O’Neill’s reluctance to allow him to play outside of the right back slot where he feels he is at his most effective.

Although Reo-Coker clearly wouldn’t be as high a quality signing as Robben, Spurs would be getting a player who has captained a club from a very young age and someone who undoubtedly has a lot of quality and experience to offer for a very young man. However, if Sours can revitalise a bid for Robben then it is unlikely he would join according to his agent, who is also his father.

He said: “It’s absolute nonsense. Arjen will certainly not join Tottenham. I will even bet a bottle of wine Arjen won’t play there.”

It’s a done thing then, especially when a large quantity of alcohol is put on the table to substantiate any doubts that anyone would have had. Many people would say that Spurs would be better off without Robben. Originally he was meant to join Manchester United but snubbed them for Chelsea where it was proved his quality was not good enough for the Premier League.

He subsequently went to join Real Madrid and now that better players than him are being bought like sweets from a candy shop he will be forced to join a club that is not as high in calibre as the big sides that he has already played for.

Reo-Coker would be a better bet in all the aspects that don’t relate to quality or skill of perfromance. He would sweat blood for the side and has already proved that he can play any role that the manager has asked him to. He also doesn’t seem to have an ego and this will please Redknapp at Spurs as this is one of the main attributes of a player that he will be looking for, all the time he is the boss at White Hart Lane.

Spurs are set to lose some quality in the middle of their team over the coming days and Redknapp will need someone who can play alongside Wilson Palacios and make good of the ball winning to turn it into quality for the likes of Robbie Keane to latch onto.

There are also reports that Spurs tried to sign the player in January so there is already an over lying interest in him from Spurs. Once a bid has been lodged or the club have been able to talk to the player then it could be a near formality that personal terms are agreed and a deal can be done.

Tottenham Hostpur are joining the race to try and sign Real Madrid striker, Jan Huntelaar. With the arrival of Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo at Madrid there is a smaller chance that the Dutchman will get an extended run in the side and Harry Redknapp is said to be an admirer of the young man who set the world alight during the early part of his career at Ajax.

Huntelaar could be just what Spurs need as he seems to be a more energetic and enthusiastic version of their current Russian striker, Roman Pavlyuchenko. The Russian has already expressed his dissatisfaction at not being able to become a first team regular and with Redknapp’s promise of Champions League football next year, this could be the first of many high calibre signings to go to White Hart Lane this summer.

The problem is that the Madrid striker would not come at a cheap price. Owing to the fact that Madrid have spent so heavily so far this summer, they will have to make good the difference by selling off a number of fringe players at good prices. This could mean that Huntelaar would attract the majority of the Spurs budget for the summer and it would be a huge risk for Redknapp to take when his side clearly needs work in a number of areas.

However, Spurs fans can all be upbeat about the fact that so far they have managed to keep the squad in tact. There had been numerous rumours about players being linked to other clubs, none of which would have helped the side if they eventually became a reality. Aaron Lennon for example has not even been speaking to Manchester United and Luka Modric is still sitting in the heart of the side and pulling all of the strings.

It really would be a fantastic signing for Spurs if they managed to pull it off because there are a number of current Premier League teams that have a lot of money ready to spend. What this means is that all of the other clubs have to be a lot more shrewd and wise in the way that they go about their business. This could be the best sort of signing that Spurs can attract because they do not have the financial muscle to compete with others when it comes to attract better players.

The difference that the Dutchman would make would be a big one. Spurs do have a very good work ethic and they are a very aggressive and passionate side. The fact is that they do lack a little bit of quality when it comes to the attacking part of the team. Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe will work their socks off but they are not the most versatile pairing in the game and Huntelaar would provide a big target man with a better touch than the Russian who already plays that role at Spurs. Spurs have a lot of work to do if they think they can sign this player but it would be fantastic if they pulled it off.