Johan Lange did not exactly have the greatest track record with Aston Villa, and Tottenham Hotspur's old top five rivals are now Europa League champions and still in the top four of the league without him. Meanwhile, Spurs are coming off the worst season in their Premier League history, barely escaping relegation.
The de facto sporting director has made a number of missteps in his tenure as an executive for Spurs, but one of the most annoying for the fans was his winter transfer window. By his own admission, Lange was trying to avoid panic buying, and that was his justification for not adding any much needed attacking talent to a Spurs side that was already lacking difference makers - and thinning out even more.
Spurs only signed Conor Gallagher, paying a premium price to Atletico Madrid for a rotational center rmidfielder. All the while, Atletico Madrid signed Spurs former left winger summer target Ademola Lookman, who paid greater dividends to the Spanish giants, including in the Champions League. (Atleti, by the way, knocked Spurs out of the competition).
Tottenham could have signed a winger
According to new information from Matt Law of the Daily Telegraph, key Tottenham Hotspur sources have relayed that despite Johan Lange telling the fans otherwise, Spurs could have indeed signed Lookman from Atalanta in the January transfer window.
Instead, Spurs did not really show interest in Lookman, who got a free pass to Atleti and became a key player for them with four goals in La Liga. Now, Lookman is not flawless and is nearing 30 himself, but he would have been a starter at left winger or even striker for Spurs, and after the season ending injuries to Mohammed Kudus and Wilson Odobert, Spurs were down to just one winger anyway.
There were options there for Tottenham to sign, whether it was Lookman or even Monaco starlet Maghnes Akliouche. It sounds like a lot of what Lange said that Tottenham fans were not buying to begin with turned out to be untrue, and had Lange and his team had reservations about Lookman, it would have been better to express that instead of pretending like there was nothing out there at all.
Tottenham have a summer transfer window to make things right, and even though Kudus and Odobert will be back with, hopefully, veteran Dejan Kulusevski to follow, another winger is still needed. And though it won't be Lookman, Akliouche, Savinho, and other old targets are out there for Spurs to go for.
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