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

[Trix]

Poch has not been criticised enough for his attitude towards transfers. Poor choices and unrealistic expectations.

It does seem to have been overlooked by many. We effectively waited a full year to get Lo Celso and Ndombele, whilst Poch sulked and turned his nose up at the likes of Tielemens offered as an alternative. This of course is all in hindsight but it should also be remembered when the club is criticised for not backing him in a squad rebuild. Christ knows what players we'd have ended up with if we had.

 

[dtxspurs]

It does seem to have been overlooked by many. We effectively waited a full year to get Lo Celso and Ndombele, whilst Poch sulked and turned his nose up at the likes of Tielemens offered as an alternative. This of course is all in hindsight but it should also be remembered when the fans are criticised for not backing him in a squad rebuild. Christ knows what players we'd have ended up with if we had.

The revisionist history on Tielemans is great around here. Everyone and their mother would have picked Ndombele over Tielemans at that point. Tielemans was largely a bust at Monaco at that point, having been voted one of the biggest flops in the league his first season there. Monaco was then willing to loan him in the middle of his second season there.

All this talk that Tielemans was some no-brainer at the time is a total farce.

 

[wrd]

The revisionist history on Tielemans is great around here. Everyone and their mother would have picked Ndombele over Tielemans at that point. Tielemans was largely a bust at Monaco at that point, having been voted one of the biggest flops in the league his first season there. Monaco was then willing to loan him in the middle of his second season there.

All this talk that Tielemans was some no-brainer at the time is a total farce.

The only thing I'd say is whilst I agree with your sentiment that 99.9% of people would have wanted Ndombele over Tielemans, in the January when Dembele was leaving, he was available on a loan, no strings attached either, Leicester didn't have an obligation on him either and for some reason that was turned down. Even if we did decide Ndombele was who we wanted over Tielemans, why Poch didn't want Tielemans for those 6 months with Dembele departing, I'll never understand that part.

 

[Robbiepope]

Although we are undoubtedly crying out for new players in January this particular window in 2019 should be a warning to the club of the potential consequences of poor recruitment. I know things have changed since then but let's pray some lessons have been learnt. Ndombele will earn another £35 million on his contract over the next 3 1/2 years.. We will be stuck with him unless we pretty much give him away or pay 60-80% of his wages on a loan deal.

I am not saying we shouldnt strengthen in January but a risky deal (possibly more likely in a January market) might be worse then not making a deal.

Maybe younger playes, end of contracts or loans with optional buy clauses need to be priority in the market Spurs work in (e.g. not top top tier players).

 

[SUIYHA]

It does seem to have been overlooked by many. We effectively waited a full year to get Lo Celso and Ndombele, whilst Poch sulked and turned his nose up at the likes of Tielemens offered as an alternative. This of course is all in hindsight but it should also be remembered when the fans are criticised for not backing him in a squad rebuild. Christ knows what players we'd have ended up with if we had.

When Poch said we needed a "painful rebuild" - I didn't realise he meant painful as in signing shit/unsuitable players for big money and watching us drop down the table

 

[dtxspurs]

The only thing I'd say is whilst I agree with your sentiment that 99.9% of people would have wanted Ndombele over Tielemans, in the January when Dembele was leaving, he was available on a loan, no strings attached either, Leicester didn't have an obligation on him either and for some reason that was turned down. Even if we did decide Ndombele was who we wanted over Tielemans, why Poch didn't want Tielemans for those 6 months with Dembele departing, I'll never understand that part.

Sure, but we were doing fine at that point without Dembele and Poch probably thought he would be getting Ndombele in 5 months so what's the point.

After his injury vs Watford we won 8 out of the next 11 league games, 9 out of 12 if you want to count the Watford game that he only played 7 minutes in.

And it was better than that if you start counting the EFL cup games that he missed when we beat West Ham, Arsenal & Chelsea without him.

 

[Trix]

When Poch said we needed a "painful rebuild" - I didn't realise he meant painful as in signing shit/unsuitable players for big money and watching us drop down the table

In hindsight it's starting to look like it might well have been. I mean to be fair the likes of De Ligt and De Jong(who Poch wanted) have done ok. Problem was neither wanted us, and considering how he threw his toys out of the pram when he couldn't get them the painful rebuild may well have been far more painful than anyone of us could have imagined.

 

[wrd]

Sure, but we were doing fine at that point without Dembele and Poch probably thought he would be getting Ndombele in 5 months so what's the point.

After his injury vs Watford we won 8 out of the next 11 league games, 9 out of 12 if you want to count the Watford game that he only played 7 minutes in.

And it was better than that if you start counting the EFL cup games that he missed when we beat West Ham, Arsenal & Chelsea without him.

Yeah I can see that I seem to remember thinking it was crazy that we weren't getting a body in even for just the bench as Wanyama could barely jog though that may have been in hindsight once the injuries starting to hit and champions league became a possibility. We just needed some depth in that moment in my opinion in hindsight.

 

[Legacy]

The revisionist history on Tielemans is great around here. Everyone and their mother would have picked Ndombele over Tielemans at that point. Tielemans was largely a bust at Monaco at that point, having been voted one of the biggest flops in the league his first season there. Monaco was then willing to loan him in the middle of his second season there.

All this talk that Tielemans was some no-brainer at the time is a total farce.

Youri Tielemans

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/01/29/tottenham-consider-move-leicester-city-target-youri-tielemans/ I remember this dude impressing me when we played Anderlecht, I've heard he's not done too well at Monaco but he's still young.

www.spurscommunity.co.uk

Looks to me like there was far more people keen on the idea of signing him than there were against him before he went on loan to Leicester, so doesn't seem like that much revisionism going on.

A 6 month loan, to see how he performs, with an option to buy at the end of it, in a position we were woefully short of quality in, absolutely was a no-brainer at the time.

 

[wrd]

Youri Tielemans

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/01/29/tottenham-consider-move-leicester-city-target-youri-tielemans/ I remember this dude impressing me when we played Anderlecht, I've heard he's not done too well at Monaco but he's still young.

www.spurscommunity.co.uk

Looks to me like there was far more people keen on the idea of signing him than there were against him before he went on loan to Leicester, so doesn't seem like that much revisionism going on.

A 6 month loan, to see how he performs, with an option to buy at the end of it, in a position we were woefully short of quality in, absolutely was a no-brainer at the time.

omg I started the thread, how exciting

 

[dtxspurs]

omg I started the thread, how exciting

I started the Ndombele one

 

[cider spurs]

Depends if Le Arse sign Vlahovic

 

[he is you know!]

Youri Tielemans

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/01/29/tottenham-consider-move-leicester-city-target-youri-tielemans/ I remember this dude impressing me when we played Anderlecht, I've heard he's not done too well at Monaco but he's still young.

www.spurscommunity.co.uk

Looks to me like there was far more people keen on the idea of signing him than there were against him before he went on loan to Leicester, so doesn't seem like that much revisionism going on.

A 6 month loan, to see how he performs, with an option to buy at the end of it, in a position we were woefully short of quality in, absolutely was a no-brainer at the time.

Another factor in all this was that they wouldn't agree an option. Valuation may have been £20m ish at the time. Leicester decided that they needed him, but because no option, the "price" doubled and they paid £40m

 

[Tottenham_God]

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

India or some Arab club ?

 

[parj]

NDombele was sensational the season we bought him, and GLC also had a very good season.

GLC arrived injured and barely fit for any minutes under Poch, and NDombele looked decent to begin with but then the players just stopped playing and Poch was gone before they were fit again.

The one thing I would say is generally we don't do well buying big name players. We do better buying good youngsters or big fish in small ponds line Vertonghen, Eriksen, Dembele, Walker, Trippier etc.

When was the last time a player over £30m did well for us? That's not the managers, that's an issue with our scouting.

 

[brasil_spur]

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.

This is a pretty lazy post IMO.

Obviously 2018 was far worse.

To give some context to the above:

Tanguy - seen as a major talent at the time and was a real statement signing from us. Ok turns out he's been fairly shit for us, but he's currently on his 5th manager since joining.

Clarke - £10m is what you pay for a home grown prospect. Kane also had a patchy early career with us with some poor loan spells and then made the breakthrough. Too early to judge Clarke IMO.

Sessegnon - looked very decent so far this season, reckon he'll be a regular first teamer for us by this time next year.

Lo Celso - We paid Betis £42m not £62m. I think it's fair to say that this transfer also hasn't really worked out for us, but again he's been through 5 managers since joining and a series of injuries.

Was this window the worst - no.

In fact go back two years and you have:

Sanchez - £38m - not worked out for that price
Aurier - £23m - didn't work out
Llorente - £14m - quite a chunk of cash for a back up striker with no sell on value
Foyth - £12m - never got a look in

And that summer we sold:

Walker - £48m - never replaced him properly

 

[Blake Griffin]

our recruitment over the past few years couldn't have been much worse if we'd tried, i genuinely think this forum would've done a better job.

16/17:
wanyama 11m - excellent for one season before getting crocked. unfortunate - A
janssen 17m - abject failure - F
nkoudou 11m - abject failure but did put in a nice cross that did actually end up being pretty important - F+
sissoko 30m - woeful for two years but to his credit became an important cog in the team for a while before going back to being woeful again - C

17/18:
gazzaniga 4m - did a solid enough job as a back-up - C
sanchez 38m - promising first season but steadily gotten worse since, had some decent spells so not a total dud but disappointing for the price/hype - D
foyth 8m - sold at a profit but negligible impact as a signing - D
aurier 23m - did ok but had his faults, on pitch i'd say C but given we recouped nothing for him - D
llorente 12m - was a bit painful to watch him lumber around but he took the weight off kane and played a big part in our cl run - C
lucas 25m - up and down overall but gave us one of the best moments in our history and seems to have picked up under conte - B-

18/19:
no one - probably for the best

19/20:
ndombele 55m - so much expected but delivered so little. will struggle to get much, if anything for him at this rate and given his wages - F
lo celso 42m - a more palatable attitude compared to ndombele but has given us just as little. constant injuries don't help but he's hardly set the world alight when fit - D-
sessegnon 30m - a couple of decent(let's not go overboard) performances recently but that's about it in two and a half years. could work out but for now - D-
clarke 11m - has struggled on loan and now plays in our u23s. i'm assuming that wasn't the plan when we signed him - D-
bergwijn 27m - i'm getting bored of repeating myself now - D-

20/21:
hojbjerg 15m - very good debut season and slotted straight in. not having a great time at the moment but been run into the ground - B
doherty 15m - i don't need to say much here - F
reguilon 27m - some good, some bad. at least has some promise moving forward - C
rodon 11m - not had much of a look in, will probably turn a profit on him so in that sense not a bad deal but little impact on the team - D

21/22:
probably too soon to judge but it's hardly been a rip-roaring success so far


i'm sure some will pick the grades apart but the overarching point is that we've had a dismal return on considerable outlay for a number of years now.