Has there ever been a worse transfer Window than Spurs Summer 2019?

[PrettyColors]

Is our Summer 2019 Transfer window is the worst in the history of football? If not, which is worse? I’m drawing a blank.

Transfers in:

Tanguy N’Dombele - Lyon - £56m
Jack Clarke - Leeds - £10m
Ryan Sessegnon - Fulham - £30m
Gio Lo Celso - Betis - loan to buy of £62m

Clarke and Sessegnon are prospects but both have done the square root of f-ck all, with Clarke struggling to even play at a League 1 level, and Sessegnon struggling to do anything but lie on the physio table. Lo Celso’s fitness is even worse than Sess’s, having played perhaps 8-10 PL matches in his entire Spurs career when he wasn’t out of form due to injury. N’Dombele, well, we all watched Morecambe, need I say more?

Transfers out:
We recouped maybe £30m in fees, the bulk of which was Kieran Trippier’s - a gaping hole at RB which has led to £40m of investment on Emerson and Doherty, both laughably inferior to Trippier even with all of his flaws.

When you consider our financial situation, the fact that we made CL final in 2019, and the truly shocking return on what was a £160m spend… it is hard to imagine a transfer window being more disastrous than this one.

 

[Tottenham_God]

Is our Summer 2019 Transfer window is the worst in the history of football? If not, which is worse? I’m drawing a blank.

Transfers in:

Tanguy N’Dombele - Lyon - £56m
Jack Clarke - Leeds - £10m
Ryan Sessegnon - Fulham - £30m
Gio Lo Celso - Betis - loan to buy of £62m

Clarke and Sessegnon are prospects but both have done the square root of f-ck all, with Clarke struggling to even play at a League 1 level, and Sessegnon struggling to do anything but lie on the physio table. Lo Celso’s fitness is even worse than Sess’s, having played perhaps 8-10 PL matches in his entire Spurs career when he wasn’t out of form due to injury. N’Dombele, well, we all watched Morecambe, need I say more?

Transfers out:
We recouped maybe £30m in fees, the bulk of which was Kieran Trippier’s - a gaping hole at RB which has led to £40m of investment on Emerson and Doherty, both laughably inferior to Trippier even with all of his flaws.

When you consider our financial situation, the fact that we made CL final in 2019, and the truly shocking return on what was a £160m spend… it is hard to imagine a transfer window being more disastrous than this one.

I thought all four were good signings when they happened, all seemed to tick a box for various reasons and then no, in hindsight, look to have been mostly a bust. But given your the time over. Would you not have done the same deals ?

 

[Riandor]

Summer 2018?!!

 

[Gassin's finest]

Uh... Yeah, how about 2018 where we signed... NOBODY!?

This club is still broken thanks to that. That's the summer that we should have sold Dier and Dele to Jose for a combined £100m and brought in the likes of Grealish and Tielemens, etc.

 

[Stamford]

Yeah joke of a window. Set us back massively and another reason why I don't want Poch back here

 

[hellava_tough]

Summer 2018?!!

Uh... Yeah, how about 2018 where we signed... NOBODY!?

This club is still broken thanks to that. That's the summer that we should have sold Dier and Dele to Jose for a combined £100m and brought in the likes of Grealish and Tielemens, etc.

Yeah, I couldn't believe it when some people on here were arguing that it wasn't a disaster.

It was obvious that the inactivity would set us back.

 

[hellava_tough]

Yeah joke of a window. Set us back massively and another reason why I don't want Poch back here

I've argued in the past that Levy and Hitchen should have at least signed some up and coming young players in 2018, even if we loaned them out straight afterwards.

Would have softened the blow and also not undermine Poch in doing so (you can always argue that youth players are from a separate budget, etc, if the manager doesn't really rate them).

But yeah, Poch definitely has some flaws he needs to remedy if he wants to become an elite level coach.

 

[Gassin's finest]

None of those players actually got to play for Poch though... Except Ndombele who scored on his debut. By the time they were fit enough to play we were arse deep in José's murk.

 

[al_pacino]

None of those players actually got to play for Poch though... Except Ndombele who scored on his debut. By the time they were fit enough to play we were arse deep in José's murk.

Considering Pochs plan was looking like a midfield diamond of Winks, Ndombele, GLC with Dele at the tip I'm not sure that would've helped. I wouldn't mind seeing how bad it could've been though.

 

[markt]

Is our Summer 2019 Transfer window is the worst in the history of football? If not, which is worse? I’m drawing a blank.

Transfers in:

Tanguy N’Dombele - Lyon - £56m
Jack Clarke - Leeds - £10m
Ryan Sessegnon - Fulham - £30m
Gio Lo Celso - Betis - loan to buy of £62m

Clarke and Sessegnon are prospects but both have done the square root of f-ck all, with Clarke struggling to even play at a League 1 level, and Sessegnon struggling to do anything but lie on the physio table. Lo Celso’s fitness is even worse than Sess’s, having played perhaps 8-10 PL matches in his entire Spurs career when he wasn’t out of form due to injury. N’Dombele, well, we all watched Morecambe, need I say more?

Transfers out:
We recouped maybe £30m in fees, the bulk of which was Kieran Trippier’s - a gaping hole at RB which has led to £40m of investment on Emerson and Doherty, both laughably inferior to Trippier even with all of his flaws.

When you consider our financial situation, the fact that we made CL final in 2019, and the truly shocking return on what was a £160m spend… it is hard to imagine a transfer window being more disastrous than this one.

Torn between that and the no singings at all.

Maybe Sessegnon will come good as a lwb, I think he has shown potential under Conte finally if not the finished article yet. Jack Clarke just an odd waste of money, but guess we were hoping for potential.

The money on Ndombele still makes me cringe though and Lo Celso is injured more often than not. Looking at other clubs signings it does make you wonder what our scouts were doing.

 

[Trix]

I thought all four were good signings when they happened, all seemed to tick a box for various reasons and then no, in hindsight, look to have been mostly a bust. But given your the time over. Would you not have done the same deals ?

Indeed and Poch was in the most part responsible for both this and the Summer window previous where we signed no one. It's crazy now to think these were the players he was refusing to accept alternatives for. All in hindsight of course, because like you say they all looked good buys at the time.

 

[Tucker]

The worst thing about summer 2019 is the outlay on Ndombele and Lo Celso. I still feel Lo Celso could come good if he can just stay fit, but Ndombele is finished here and he’s still leaching 200k a week out of the wage budget.

Sessengnon is going to thrive under Conte, it’s his preferred position and he’ll be invaluable, I don’t see a problem with signing either him or Clarke. Clarke hasn’t worked out, but at ten million that’s not the end of the world. Speculating on young talent is what’s got us to where we are as a club over the last twenty years. Signing players like Lennon, Huddlestone, Carrick, Defoe, Bale etc etc. We need to keep doing that.

Ndombele in particular I fear will be a millstone around our necks for some time. All that money tied up in a player who can’t or won’t work hard.

While summer 2018 contributed to the malaise that fell over the club, I think 2019 is the one that’s compounded it, because we’ve the best part of £100 million tied up in players that so far haven’t lived up to their potential. It’s stopped us buying anyone else in creative midfield positions too.

 

[Tottenham_God]

The worst thing about summer 2019 is the outlay on Ndombele and Lo Celso. I still feel Lo Celso could come good if he can just stay fit, but Ndombele is finished here and he’s still leaching 200k a week out of the wage budget.

Sessengnon is going to thrive under Conte, it’s his preferred position and he’ll be invaluable, I don’t see a problem with signing either him or Clarke. Clarke hasn’t worked out, but at ten million that’s not the end of the world. Speculating on young talent is what’s got us to where we are as a club over the last twenty years. Signing players like Lennon, Huddlestone, Carrick, Defoe, Bale etc etc. We need to keep doing that.

Ndombele in particular I fear will be a millstone around our necks for some time. All that money tied up in a player who can’t or won’t work hard.

While summer 2018 contributed to the malaise that fell over the club, I think 2019 is the one that’s compounded it, because we’ve the best part of £100 million tied up in players that so far haven’t lived up to their potential. It’s stopped us buying anyone else in creative midfield positions too.

I still feel like Tanguy can be sold on for a decent fee. It will be a loss, but someone will be dumb enough to pay 30-40

 

[Tucker]

I still feel like Tanguy can be sold on for a decent fee. It will be a loss, but someone will be dumb enough to pay 30-40

I just don’t see it in the current financial climate. I doubt anyone in the premier league would touch him with a ten foot barge pole, and clubs on the continent are skint. It’s his wages that will b e the problem.

 

[Tottenham_God]

I just don’t see it in the current financial climate. I doubt anyone in the premier league would touch him with a ten foot barge pole, and clubs on the continent are skint. It’s his wages that will b e the problem.

I just hope some cashed up Chinese club likes him

 

[Dov67]

Sometimes a player just doesn’t work at a club for reasons nobody could have predicted. Injury, family situations, change of manager and systems etc etc.

In the case of NdombLee, it comes down to character or lack thereof. He is one of the most talented players in the premier league and also the most lazy and unprofessional.

What kind of research did they do on him before splashing such a huge amount of money I dont know, but the lack of work ethic, interest in his teammates and sheer laziness are not character traits that would have come out of the clear blue sky from nowhere just in the last 3 years - they would have been there all along and perhaps our scouting teams should have identified the kind of player and person he was before we signed him.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but its reasonable to assume the warning signs were there for those who would have looked hard enough

Sesseognon I feel a little sorry for - he’s had 4 managers since he joined and a year on loan and every time he gets going, he seems to get immediately injured. One of my best mates is a Fulham fan, and he told me at the time he’s an average full back but a very good attacking wing back. So maybe Conte is the one to unlock that potential.

 

[Tucker]

I just hope some cashed up Chinese club likes him

China changed their rules on foreign transfers, the days of offloading players to China are over.

 

[Rout-Ledge]

2019 was worse than 2018.

2018 was a disaster but it could have been rectified in 2019 if we’d spent well. 2019 was a bigger disaster because it set us back years - the astronomical amounts of money wasted on players that are impossible to shift at anything other than a dramatic loss.

 

[wrd]

I mean the reality is, our manager wanted very specific players because he felt with his managerial style that he could get the best out of them and that they fit specifically what he was hoping to do. We then sacked the manager after things were not great in the short term in that season. I'm not saying it was a right or wrong decision but I'm merely pointing out that this whole blame Poch for poor purchases just seems to miss the point of how teams are successfully built and how the players perform within that team.

I mean people constantly say wasn't Ndombele's attitude scouted before we signed him, as somebody rightfully pointed out that Poch might have known that and felt he personally had the management style to get the best out of him. I mean considering the level of improvements that players showed at Southampton and Spurs under him, it's not a far fetched concept. To then judge Poch as making terrible transfers when he himself barely got to get to grips with the players just seems foolish to me. We subsequently went a completely different route in managers who all use completely different styles to the manager who bought them both and completely different ways of man management as we saw under Jose and Nuno to what Poch did. Poch created a togetherness and then the 2 managers after completely eroded that feeling at the club which speaks to their different styles.

I just think it's one of those, sometimes players got lost in the shuffle when a club decides to make managerial changes or go in completely different directions. I think the mark of a strong minded player is how they adapt to that manager. I mean look at Sessegnon, he was wanted for Poch's style which you could see him fitting stylistically but he was injured the entire time, then under Jose it didn't look a good fit and he was loaned out, never saw him under Nuno but under Conte you can see that stylistically his career could really thrive. Jose came in and pretty much said he didn't fancy Lo Celso and Lo Celso changed his mind, I think if he stays fit then he could do similar under Conte.

I just think fans don't acknowledge how sacking a manager before he gets to really mould a player for his own benefit can have such an impact. Just because players signed under Poch didn't adap to what Jose/Nuno or even Conte wanted doesn't mean that Poch had a disaster of a window, or the club did poor scouting, it's just one of those things that happens when clubs go through transitions.

I think if you're going to back a manager with such an outlay then you should be prepared to weather the storm as the squad begins a period of adaption rather than sack the manager at the first sign of trouble personally because for all we know, once the players came back from injury and adapted then they may have thrived under his stewardship, however it's all happened now and we've ended up with Conte as our manager which is still frankly unbelievable how lucky we've got, so whatever happened to get us to this point, I'm fine with happening but threads like these just completely miss the point in my opinion.

 

[13VanDerBale13]

Undoubtedly, our recruitment in general has been pretty awful of lately