Harry Redknapp: Too much credit is being given to average managers, and why did Spurs sign Sissoko?

Can anyone explain why Tottenham paid £30m for Moussa Sissoko in the final hours of the transfer window?

I know their chairman Daniel Levy likes to spend a few quid on deadline day, but to spend that much on a player who was awful as Newcastle got relegated last season was a mystery to me.

As it happens, Spurs have had a few problems in central midfield with Eric Dier and Mousa Dembele being out for one reason or another, but Tottenham signed Victor Wanyama to bolster their midfield options and I just don’t see Sissoko getting into their team when everyone is fit an available.

Dier and Dembele were vital members of the Spurs team last season and I would have them in ahead of Sissoko. I also like Wanyama and he would get into the team ahead of Sissoko as well, so I’m struggling to understand why they felt the need to equal their transfer record and spent that much on a player who had a couple of half decent games at Euro 2016.

Did anyone at Tottenham watch Sissoko playing for Newcastle last season? He was pretty dreadful and their supporters don’t have a good word to say about him, but here he arrived at Spurs in a £30m deal.

I guess the chairman was keen to get a player in on deadline day, but I just didn’t see the need to blow all that cash on another midfielder when they are well stocked in that area already.

Maybe we all just have accept the game has changed beyond recognition and spending £30m on a player you don’t really need is not a big deal with all this money flying around the Premier League from the new TV contract.

I’m a little more old school and remember the stories of players like Tommy Lawton going to play his first game at Everton after what was a big money move back in the 1930 and he made his way to the game on the train with the fans. You could never imagine that happening now.

Yet this is an age where some footballers seem just as interested in being on Twitter or Facebook than they are scoring goals and winning matches, which is something I will never understand.

The life of a manager has not been made any easier by this social media explosion because every time you lose a game now, there tends to be people lining up to have a pop at you. You are great one week and then the following weekend, the same fella thinks you haven’t got a clue.

My solution when I was in the game was never to read Twitter or any of that social media nonsense and I know Sir Alex Ferguson had the same view as me on this issue during his time in charge at Manchester United.

To be honest, I have no idea why footballers want to be on Twitter because I am sure they get abused on there and they are earning enough money now not to spend their time worrying about that.

It’s another sign that the game is very different compared to just a few years ago and when I see the way people talk about managers now as if they are some kind of miracle worker, I find it amazing.

You hear pundits saying a manager has pulled off a masterstroke when he changes his defensive shape around after a bad run of results. Changing things is not the sign of a great manager because if he was that clever, he wouldn’t have had a bad run of results in the first place.

Football is all about good player and the teams with the best players tend to win the most matches. It’s pretty simple when you look at it like that.

I was playing golf with Graeme Souness a few weeks back and we were talking about the way the game has changed and he recalled that the Liverpool team he played in back in the early 1980s played with attacking full-backs.

You hear pundits now hailing managers as miracle workers for coming up with the idea of playing with attacking full-backs, but it is hardly a new idea. The basics of this game will never change and we should not get carried away with modern managers being better than what they are.

What has changed is the way people perceive the game, so if I ever come back into management, maybe I will not call myself Harry any more and use my initials HJR as my new nick-name because that might make me sound clever. It has to be worth a try!

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