Frank Malley believes Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp has done a great disservice to the FA Cup with his comments.

Tottenham had just reached Wembley to defend their Carling Cup crown and Harry Redknapp's features danced that shifty jig they do when the adrenalin is flowing.

Then came a message for Sir Alex Ferguson which contained the most depressing sentence of what should have been Tottenham's most exciting week.

"If Alex is listening," said Redknapp. "I'm really going to send a real mish-mash team up there. I hope it doesn't upset the supporters. It will be a very, very weakened team going to Old Trafford."

And once more the face of the FA Cup, football's most famous domestic cup competition, was being ground into the dirt.

Manchester United v Tottenham is THE tie of this weekend's fourth round. It is one of the great cup fixtures. One of football's most anticipated encounters.

Yet Redknapp apparently is prepared to step aside and wave United through like the doorman at the Dorchester to save his players for a league match against Stoke on Tuesday.

Redknapp's reasoning? The club already have their Wembley day out. Now they must attend to the main priority of Premier League survival with a squad which has been depleted with injuries.

Nothing wrong with that, you might say. Just another example of football's fixture madness, scheduling a crucial Premier League match so close to an FA Cup weekend.

Yet my beef is not so much with Redknapp's reasoning as his constant whining.

In a week dominated by the catchphrase 'Yes we can' all we have heard from Harry Redknapp is 'No we can't.'

It is getting tedious.

From his open criticism of striker Darren Bent for his miss against Portsmouth to the constant public flaying of his players to the snide remarks about previous regimes.

"It's a hard job I have on here, believe you me," says Redknapp. "This is a football club that has been put together by I don't know who and I don't know how."

Oh, and had you heard by the way that Tottenham had managed only two points from eight matches before Redknapp took over? Thought you might have, considering he picks up that fact like a blunt instrument and hits poor interviewers over the head with it repeatedly every time a microphone is thrust under his nose.

Why? Easy. In case anyone had got the idea that it was anything to do with Harry that Tottenham were in a relegation scrap.

Don't get me wrong. Redknapp has done brilliantly with limited resources almost everywhere he has been. I was one of his biggest admirers at Bournemouth, West Ham and Portsmouth twice. I was there on my feet applauding when he finally wrapped his arms around the FA Cup at Wembley last May.

But his mantra that he does not have strong enough players, either physically or mentally, at White Hart Lane, is wearing thin.

They were strong enough to draw with Arsenal and Manchester United and beat Liverpool twice, once in the league and then in the Carling Cup, when Redknapp jumped on board.

They were resourceful enough to win three and draw one of their first four matches under Redknapp and take 17 points from their first 10 games.

Even allowing for the psychological impetus a new manager brings that was impressive stuff.

Yet bright young talents such as Aaron Lennon, Jermaine Jenas and Tom Huddlestone inexplicably have been left on the bench.

And Redknapp's body language of late has been relentlessly negative, despite being handed the funds to return Jermain Defoe to the Lane and this week reinforce his midfield with the robust talents of £14m Wilson Palacios.

It is not the cheeky-chappy Redknapp we have come to know. Nor is it astute reverse psychology. More likely, it is perhaps the first sullen signs of a man unused to handling the expectations of a big club.

How much better if Redknapp had celebrated his Wembley return with a different message for Sir Alex. Such as 'Here's my team, we're coming to get you.'

More to the point, how much better that would have been for the FA Cup.

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Depending on which reports you read Didier Drogba is on his way to Marseille or Manchester City. The sooner the better.

Under Jose Mourinho, Drogba was one of the world's great strikers, a scorer of great goals and lots of them.

By contrast, he has scored just once in the league this season and given the impression he wants to be anywhere but Stamford Bridge. Chelsea should grant his wish.

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Losing out on Kaka was an obvious setback to Manchester City's plan to rule the football world.

Yet the apparent disaffection of Brazilian Robinho, who fled City's warm-weather training camp in Tenerife this week, could prove more destabilising if reported observations by former Real Madrid technical director Arrigo Sacchi are anything to go by.

"It was not a footballing choice," said Sacchi of Robinho's move from Madrid. "Now, at City, he has lost the happiness that football gave him. Just as sad is that he has lost the 'fantasy' in his football.

"He totally messed up. No one can choose to leave Real Madrid in order to go to a club like Manchester City."

Make no mistake, football's top stars will have taken note.