Harry Redknapp Cancels Christmas At Tottenham Hotspur

"Everyone's waiting for you to trip up, go out and get drunk or act silly. You don't need that.

"It's a long season and at the end of that, if we are successful and achieve something at Tottenham, they can go and have a party. They can go and enjoy their break in the summer.

"This is a busy period, a working period. Why should we have Christmas parties? Every year there's aggro at every football club that has one."

"I want to see them enjoy themselves but not at this time of year. They've got nothing to celebrate.

"They have to maintain their fitness and be prepared for a tough program coming up – one thing they don't need is to get a load of booze down their neck."

Reports surfaced earlier today that Redknapp had clashed with David Bentley during a Spurs friendly in midweek. The Tottenham boss played down rumors of a row though.

"It wasn't a real bust-up, nothing that would compare with what we are talking about at the other clubs this week," he explained.

"I wasn't happy with his performance in the first half of a game and that was it.

"There was no blazing row. I just felt he could have done better than he was doing. It was very mild. I was supposed to have said I will sell him in January. That's absolutely rubbish."

Meanwhile, Spurs welcome Wolverhampton Wanderers to White Hart Lane at the weekend boosted by the news that Luka Modric returns to the squad.

The Croat has been out of action since August with a broken fibula.

However, Spurs will be without Ledley King and Jonathan Woodgate.

"It was looking great, he'd worked hard for three weeks. He was just short of a game, unfortunately it was a freak accident – the ball hit him in the face and his knee jarred.

"Hopefully he shouldn't be too long. Woodgate the same."

Zack Wilson, Goal.com