Tottenham: Hits and misses for Spurs in the transfer market

The belief is Tottenham Hotspur and Daniel Levy do not spend on transfers. The truth is Spurs spend, now whether they spend wisely is a different question.

It used to be that Tottenham Hotspur were just sellers in the transfer market, however, over the last decade plus, Spurs have started to really spend too.

While that net spend of over $150 million in the negative shows the club spends, who they spend that money on is a different question. Since 2010, Tottenham Hotspur have signed some 55 players at a cost of over $870 million, but only 18 of those players remain at the club and many only lasted a season or two.

So, who have been the hits and misses for Tottenham over the last decade? Note signings and fees based on transfermrkt.com.

Signings of the past

Currently the longest standing transfer still with the club is Hugo Lloris, who joined the club in the summer before the 2012-13 season, less than 90 days after Harry Redknapp was relieved of his duties with the club. Given no one prior to that year is still with the club, I will group the 2009-12 signings together, at the end of the Redknapp era.

Redknapp and Spurs were in a somewhat similar position to the current squad at the turn of the decade in that the team was battling for the top four and Champions League places. To that end, Redknapp liked to bring in big names and some of them worked out well and some did not.

While Rafael van der Vaart was not quite the player he was at Ajax for Spurs, he was far greater than the player Real Madrid got. With 28 goals and 18 assists in 77 games with Spurs, it is safe to say he was a success in the attacking midfield, not to mention Spurs made a profit on his sale just two years later. Likewise, Peter Crouch was a decent signing for Spurs, who with 24 goals and 21 assists in 93 games had an impact as well.

The best signing of that time was Kyle Walker, who played some 229 games for Spurs over the parts of seven seasons with the club. Purchased for under $7 million and sold on to Manchester City for a then defensive player record of nearly $58 million, the club certainly got a great deal from Walker. Other signings, like Sebastian Bassong, Sandro, and Scott Parker did not work out quite as well. Bassong, just did not fit, Sandro could not stay healthy, and Parker was already a bit long in the tooth.

What the end of the Redknapp era, just as the years that followed – regardless of manager – showed was that the transfer market is a hit or miss venue, where sometimes you strike gold and others you strike out. Note that over those last three seasons Spurs had a positive balance in the transfer market of $2.19 million.

The Villas-Boas/Sherwood Era

Combined, Andres Villas-Boas and Tim Sherwood managed just over 100 games, winning more than half at 58. While AVB did get to oversee two transfer windows, Sherwood had zero as manager from December 2013 until May 2014. However, in those two windows in the summers of 2012 and 2013, AVB and Levy built what would be a big part of Spurs’ club for years to come.

Tottenham Hotspur brought in eight new players in the summer of 2012, headlined by future and current captain Hugo Lloris. That splurge was mostly sponsored by the sales of Luka Modric and Rafael van der Vaart, as Spurs looked to become a younger side. While older veterans like Modric, van der Vaart, and Giovani dos Santos moved on, new young players like Mousa Dembele, Jan Vertonghen, and Lloris came into the club.

Of the eight signings, it was those three – Dembele, Vertonghen, and Lloris – who have been un-mitigating successes for Spurs. While Lewis Holtby and Zeki Fryers were both whiffs, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Clint Dempsey, and Emmanuel Adebayor all had their moments. In hitting three out of the eight we see transfers are not always successful, but those three combined for a lot of service and success for the club.

Andres Villas-Boas’ second transfer window was of course the year that Tottenham sold Elvis to purchase the Beatles or, so we were to believe with the Bale bonanza. However, looking back seven years later, the success was not as great as one would have hoped.

Of the seven purchases in the summer of 2013, only three – Christian Eriksen, Nacer Chadli, and Erik Lamela – would serve more than two seasons at the club. While Eriksen was great, Lamela has never been quite as good or as healthy as anyone would have wanted.

AVB had 15 incoming transfers and only six played more than 100 matches at the club. Further, only two of those 15 are still here, Lloris and Lamela. While the hits were rather good with Eriksen, Dembele, and Lloris, the percentage of successes is still not good enough. Note, over the two windows with AVB, Spurs had a positive net spend of $9.21 million. Thus, from the summer of 2009 through the end of the 2014 season, Spurs had a positive net spend of $15.64 million.

Pochettino and the transfer market

Hired in late May of 2014, Mauricio Pochettino was the head coach for six transfer windows with the club. During that time, Tottenham Hotspur brought in some 27 players at a net spend of negative $127.37 million dollars. While much is made of the summer of 2018 when Spurs did not sign a single transfer, in truth, at that point Pochettino had brought in 22 players with half showing success.

The two best seasons for transfer success with Pochettino as manager were the first two seasons when Pochettino had the least say in the transfer dealings. In those two seasons, 12 players were brought in with six being a part of the team that made it to the Champions League final in 2019. Ben Davies, Dele Alli, and Eric Dier came in 2015 and then Heung-Min Son, Toby Alderweireld, and Kieran Trippier came in 2016. Those six players have made up much of the nucleus of the success of the club under Pochettino.

Of course, with six of 12 coming good, that means six did not make quite the same impact. Names like Federico Fazio, Benjamin Stambouli, and Clinton N’Jie likely bring back some bad dreams for folks. Other players like De’Andre Yedlin and Kevin Wimmer were fun, but not quite ready for Spurs. The good news was that with players coming in and out, over those first two seasons, Spurs were a net positive of nearly $13.5 million in the transfer market.

After the successes with Son, Alderweireld, and Trippier, things began to change. While it was maybe the one buy no one at Spurs wanted at the time, of the players signed before the 2016-17 season, only Moussa Sissoko has been a real mainstay for the club.

While Victor Wanyama provided one great season, injuries pretty much meant that was all he could provide. Vincent Janssen and Georges Kevin-N’Koudou had their moments and at times had the backing of the fans, but neither ever had the backing of Pochettino or a real opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the club.

The 2017-18 transfer market was a bit better to Tottenham with Davinson Sanchez as a solid if slightly overpriced signing and then Lucas Moura was a strong January addition to the club. While he clearly divides fans, Serge Aurier has been a more than serviceable right back and puts it all on the field for the club.

Juan Foyth, well you must miss some, although he maybe could come good under Mourinho, more than likely Foyth will not become a squad regular. Of note, Paulo Gazzaniga was added that summer for an undisclosed fee and he has been a serviceable back-up to Lloris. That 2017-18 window once Moura was added left Spurs with a negative $34.32 million spend on the window and negative $20.84 million in the Pochettino era.

Of course, 2018 was the summer of no signings, but in honesty, after being in the red for the previous three summers and trying to finance a new stadium build, it is not really surprising Spurs did not have the funds to make a big splash that window.

Whereas Kyle Walker and academy products Ryan Mason, Nabil Bentaleb, and Alex Pritchard brought in around $100 million to fund summer spending, the only sale in 2018 was Mousa Dembele in December. Of course, the club has been paying for that one ever since, but that is a different story. That net positive of $5.89 million on the season left Spurs in the red nearly $15 million in five windows under Pochettino.

Tottenham transfers in the last season

The summer of 2019 was the last window under Pochettino in which Spurs spent over $100 million on three players – Tanguy Ndombele, Ryan Sessegnon, and Jack Clarke. Not including the loan fee for Giovani Lo Celso, Spurs were negative $59 million in net spend for that last window under Pochettino.

While the jury is still out on most of those players, as it is for Steven Bergwijn and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg signed under Jose Mourinho, if history tells us anything it is that only half of those guys are going to come good. Given the lack of playing time, even on loan, for some of the players, we can maybe start to see who those guys will be.

In the end, you hit some, you miss some, and you spend a lot trying. Who have I missed? Was there a great signing I have not mentioned? Or how about a terrible one I did not point out?