Redknapp and Mancini trade blows over money

Managers indulge in some verbal sparring ahead of Spurs' crunch match at City tomorrow

Harry Redknapp and Roberto Mancini yesterday traded barbed comments ahead of tomorrow's big Premier League game between their two teams with the Tottenham Hotspur manager telling his Italian counterpart that Manchester City had bought their success.

Later Mancini responded to Redknapp's remarks by saying that if it really was all about money then he would be glad to lend the Spurs manager some. "He can borrow money from us if he doesn't have money," Mancini said.

Earlier in the day Redknapp said that it was impossible for Spurs to compete with City given the wages paid by the Abu Dhabi-owned club. In their last financial results in November, City posted a loss of £194.9m following losses of £174m the previous year. By way of comparison, Tottenham announced a total net debt of £56.8m in November.

Redknapp said: "If I could go and buy Carlos Tevez today – you ain't got to be a genius really have you? You guys follow football. You sit there and watch Spanish football. When people started talking last year about Tottenham bidding for Sergio Aguero I thought 'What a load of nonsense'. How can we afford Aguero? We aren't going to pay £250,000 a week to a player, it's not possible.

"Daniel [Levy] runs this club as it should be run. He is not going to put it in debt like that, it can't happen here. When you can buy players like that [Aguero] you have got a chance, haven't you? Same as when Chelsea started breaking the bank and buying all the top players at that time.

"I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm sitting in the top six. I'm no cleverer than Roberto Martinez. He's probably cleverer than me. He's sitting at the bottom of the league because he hasn't got the players. He can't afford to buy the players."