Soccer: Crossing the great divide

As endorsements from your new boss go, it wasn't quite what William Gallas would have been hoping for when Harry Redknapp sought to play down the likely controversy of the defender's journey from Arsenal to Tottenham Hotspur.

"It is not the Yorkshire Ripper I am signing, is it?" Redknapp said yesterday. "He is a footballer, he plays football."

The furore that has buzzed around Spurs' acquisition of the former Arsenal captain over the last 24 hours was, according to Redknapp, "all cobblers" but as the details of one of the most surprising signings of the transfer window emerged this week it is obvious that Gallas' arrival is not going to be as smooth as Redknapp might hope.

Gallas will have to start more than 30 games in order to earn himself an automatic one-year extension to his contract, having turned down a two-year deal when his previous contract at Arsenal expired.

Redknapp confirmed Gallas had agreed a deal with Spurs on less than the £80,000-a-week he originally turned down at Arsenal.

"I'm not saying it was a clever move on his part at the time, financially it wasn't because he hasn't got massive money here," Redknapp said.

"He has signed a good contract for a year but we have not thrown loads of money at him because he has not asked for it. He could have got a lot more money elsewhere. He hasn't come here for a big payday because I can promise you that's what he hasn't got at Tottenham.

"He told me he wanted to play. He has taken the hardest challenge of all coming to Tottenham. It hasn't bothered him, he could have said, 'no, I don't want to go there, I don't want to do that. They might not like me there, I will go and play somewhere else'. He went, 'no, I want to play at Tottenham'.

"He will come here with a point to prove. If he wanted an easy life he could have gone to Greece or somewhere, for big money, and said, 'that's OK, I've done all that'. But he's put himself under real pressure, massive pressure, to come here. You've got to give the man some credit."

The club will allow Gallas two weeks to train and bring himself up to speed before throwing the 33-year-old into action, which gives him enough time to win Spurs fans over before the trip to the Emirates on November 21.

Redknapp added that Jonathan Woodgate's career was now in the balance, with another operation pending that could be, as he said, the defender's "last chance".

While Redknapp's approach has been to make light of the potential upset of taking a former Arsenal captain to Spurs - he said he had no plans to make Gallas captain - he was also forced to confront the issues around Gallas' personality.

Not least of these is the player's infamous tantrum at Birmingham City in a game in February 2008. He lost the captaincy later the same year for publicly criticising his team-mates.

Redknapp, in reference to Gallas' subsequent refusal to leave the pitch that day at the end of the game, said: "He could have just walked off the pitch and asked the lads, 'where are we going tonight ... Tramps [the nightclub] or somewhere?' But he didn't, did he? He was distraught at the result, he cares. You need people like him."

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger conceded yesterday that Spurs had signed a "great player" in Gallas and agreed the defender had demonstrated his will to win with his protests at Birmingham. Wenger said Gallas showed "he is not somebody who comes just to take his money and move away - he wanted really to win".

"He is not a troublemaker. It's an unjustified reputation. He's somebody that is not always talking, but he does his job. When you're manager you respect Gallas, because the way he responded when I stripped him of his captaincy was absolutely fantastic. He focused, worked hard, and showed on the pitch that he still wanted to win."

- INDEPENDENT

Six who switched

Sol Campbell
* Tottenham 1992-2001
* (255 appearances and 10 goals)
* Defected to Spurs' fiercest rivals Arsenal on 3 July 2001 in a move which stunned fans.

Carlos Tevez
* Manchester United 2007-09
* (63 appearances and 19 goals)
* Tevez sensationally signed a five-year deal with local rivals Manchester City. He was welcomed to Eastlands with a controversial "Welcome to Manchester" billboard.

Luis Figo
* Barcelona 1995-2000
* (172 appearances and 30 goals)
* After a two-year stint at the Nou Camp, the Portuguese transferred to bitter rivals Real Madrid for £37.2m.

Mo Johnston
* Celtic 1984-1987
* (140 appearances and 52 goals)
* On leaving Celtic the striker spent two seasons with French club Nantes before the self-proclaimed Bhoys fan said he was anxious to return to his former side. He even posed in a green-and-white shirt until Rangers manager Graeme Souness lured him to Ibrox.

Pat Jennings
* Tottenham 1964-1977
* (472 appearances)
* At White Hart Lane he won the 1967 FA Cup, the League Cup in 1971 and 1973 and also the Uefa Cup in 1972. However, in 1977 he moved across north London to Arsenal and played for eight years, playing in three FA Cup finals, in 1978, 1979 and 1980.

Michael Laudrup
* Barcelona 1989-1994
* (167 appearances and 49 goals)
* Starred for Barcelona as they won four consecutive league titles under Johan Cruyff. In 1994 the Dane moved to Real Madrid, becoming the first player to win the Spanish league five times in a row with two different clubs (four with Barca, one with Real).