Soccer:Harry Redknapp has branded Tottenham fans who have vented their anger at the club's fortunes this season as "idiots". The Spurs manager is bemused by those supporters who used a radio phone-in following the 1-0 defeat by Manchester City on Tuesday to criticise Spurs' recent slump.

Hopes of qualifying for the Champions League once again were extinguished at Eastlands and the team are locked in a battle with Liverpool - Sunday's opponents - for fifth place in the Barclays Premier League.

Redknapp insists the dissenting voices are only a minority.

"The reaction doesn't hurt me. The reason I don't listen to phone-ins is because you're talking about idiots," he said. "Who rings up a radio station? My dad lived for football, went every Saturday, but he wouldn't pick up the phone to a radio station. It's absolute nonsense.

"They're idiots who don't even watch football. They say, 'We were rubbish today'. The guys on the radio ask them if they were at the game, and they say, 'No, I heard it on the radio'.

"When I start worrying about what they think, I'll be in trouble. 99.9 per cent of people who go to Tottenham have loved everything they've seen. That's all that matters."

Spurs made their Champions League debut this season, reaching the quarter-finals where they were knocked out by Real Madrid. Redknapp stresses that the club can never take qualifying for Europe's top club competition for granted.

"I can't believe what's been said. I don't know where they've been the last few years. Not watching Tottenham obviously," he said. "We've seen some great football this year, some great games.

"Maybe expectations have been raised, but they don't have any brains, they don't understand. If they think we should have Champions League football every year, then what's been happening during all those years we didn't qualify?

"I didn't see us reaching the Champions League previously. It's not as if it's something that happens every year but hasn't happened this time, so it's a disaster.

"It's so hard to get into the top four now. We were flying until Gareth Bale got injured and that was a massive setback for us. We could have got an extra four or five points."