Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp could face disciplinary action after he appeared to aim a clenched-fist gesture towards Shamrock Rovers supporters on Thursday.

Goals from Steven Pienaar, Andros Townsend Jermain Defoe and Harry Kane gave Tottenham a 4-0 win over the Irish part-timers, but Rubin Kazan's 1-1 draw at PAOK Salonika meant Redknapp's team crashed out of the Europa League.

The 64-year-old's night took a turn for the worse with 20 minutes left when he appeared to make the angry gesture towards the Shamrock fans, who had barracked him almost continuously throughout the match.

The Spurs boss, who was this week warned by the Football Association over his future conduct after making critical comments about referee Chris Foy, tried to downplay the apparent incident after the game.

When asked if had made an obscene gesture towards the Rovers fans, Redknapp said: "Not really. Did I make an "obscene" gesture? No, I didn't make... No."

Redknapp had taken heavy criticism from the Rovers fans all night, but tried again to play down the incident by saying: "I have spent enough time in Ireland to know what lovely people they are.

"If you go and meet them afterwards they are probably lovely people. But they get together and shout a load of nonsense and that is football. That's life. I don't hold any grudges."

Recent defeats to Rubin Kazan and PAOK Salonika meant Tottenham were big outsiders to progress from Group A before Thursday night's match.

They had to beat Shamrock and hope PAOK beat Rubin in Greece while the Londoners also had to overturn a five-goal goal difference the Russians held over them.

At half-time, Spurs were on course to progress, however, with Rubin 1-0 down and reduced to 10 men while Redknapp's team were 3-0 up.

Another two goals would have been enough had the result in Thessaloniki stayed the same, but Rubin equalised, meaning Spurs were heading out, regardless of their margin of victory in Ireland.

Redknapp was proud of his players, but admitted his team were facing an almost impossible task to qualify.

"We came and did the job we had to do but when you are in a situation like we were tonight [Thursday] and you are relying on another score, it is always difficult," he said.

"At half-time, with the Russian team losing 1-0 having gone down to 10 men very early in the first half, I thought maybe they will be beaten 2-0 or 3-0, and we would just need to win by three or four, but I had a feeling they would draw."

Pienaar's 18-yard drive opened the scoring for a much-changed Tottenham side, before Townsend scored the pick of the goals with a brilliant 20-yard curler.

He then played in Defoe for the third in first half injury time before Kane scored his first Tottenham goal at the death to seal the emphatic win.

Redknapp has never hidden his dislike of the Europa League, but on Thursday night insisted he was disappointed to be exiting the competition.

"It was disappointing. I want to win every game. We haven't not gone through for lack of trying," he said.

"Maybe if I had played players like Scott Parker and Rafa van der Vaart we might have sneaked through, but we might not have won 10 out of 11 league games though."