HARRY Redknapp insists that the future is bright at Tottenham, despite losing the race for the top four and failing to secure Champions League qualification.

The Lilywhites have won just one of their last 13 games in all competitions, and now sit nine points behind Manchester City ahead of an ominous-looking trip to in-form Liverpool on Sunday.

However, Redknapp is refusing to wallow in a disappointing three months at White Hart Lane, and is backing his Spurs side to go from strength to strength.

“It’s been a great season. Anyone who hasn’t enjoyed watching Tottenham play doesn’t enjoy watching football, because we’ve played some fantastic stuff,” he said. “We’ve played some great games and I think we’ve been a pleasure to watch. I love watching us play and that’s the most important thing for me.

“We just lacked that cutting edge. We haven’t got as many goals from the front players as we would have liked, obviously, but they’re all good players. I’m sure they’ll come back next year and score a few more.

“It’s really hard to stay in that top four and it’s going to be even harder next year. I keep saying it, we have to improve in the summer - the chairman and I both want to do that.

“We have to clear the decks a bit. We’ve got lots of players who aren’t in the team, who have been out on loan, and we’ve got to shift one or two if we can, and bring one or two in who could make the difference – because we’ve got the nucleus of a really good team.

“Sandro has emerged as a fantastic player this year so that’s encouraging, and young Danny Rose has come in at left-back and done a great job for us. We have so much to look forward to in the next couple of years at Tottenham.”

Despite losing 1-0 at Eastlands on Tuesday night, Redknapp refutes suggestions that Spurs had a ‘tough night’ in Manchester.

“It wasn’t that tough, I thought we played well. We controlled the game for long, long periods,” said Redknapp.

“For an away team, we had an awful lot of the ball. I’m delighted with the players.

“I set out with more or less the same team that went out to AC Milan and won in the San Siro. Wilson [Palacios] has been injured and that’s the first time we thought he’d be fit.

“I played Wilson and Sandro in that central position, and we looked really solid, with Modric and Lennon and Van der Vaart playing off of Crouch. That’s how we set ourselves up, and I felt we had control of the game for the majority of it.”