This summer’s transfer window is going to be a strange one.
Former Tottenham sporting director Damien Comolli predicted to Sky Sports that swaps and loans will be the order of business in the aftermath of the COVID-19 postponement which will inhibit clubs financially.
But loans are not a tactic Spurs have often used in the transfer market, if you dismiss our recent loan-to-buy deals for Gedson Fernandes and Giovani Lo Celso. Short-term loans, for a season or less, to fill a hole in the squad, is not really how big clubs operate. They suggest financial weakness, a lack of a transfer strategy, and can hinder the progress of your long-term assets.
Here are all of our loan signings of this type from the past 15 years:
Pau Lopez – 2017
Emmanuel Adebayor -2011
Iaqo Falque – 2011
Stipe Pletikosa – 2011
Eidur Gudjohnsen – 2010
Fraizer Campbell – 2008
You can mostly split these players into two categories:
a) Third-choice goalkeepers
b) Youngsters we took a punt on
Three of them didn’t ever play for us in the Premier League.
Adebayor is the one loan signing who was brought in to be a key player, scoring 17 league goals in the 2011-12 season. There was no obligation to buy him afterwards but we did based on his performances that season.
We need to be on the lookout for a few Adebayors (2011-12 only) again.
Football London claims that Jose Mourinho’s transfer budget will be around £50m if we don’t qualify for the Champions League, which is nowhere near enough to address the five or six positions where we need players.
Some of our most exciting transfer links so far have been speculating loans moves, such as Philippe Coutinho, Achraf Hakimi and Luka Jovic, as Football London details. These are Champions League calibre players who could be available at a fraction of market value.
I’d prefer us to explore this market more seriously than ever before, than buy players who aren’t good enough because they are who we can afford.
We will need to find long-term solutions for the positions where we bring in short-term loan signings, but we would need to do that anyway if we sign sub-standard players who will need replacing when they get found out.
And this way we don’t waste what little money we have in the first place.
As fans we have always thought that spending more in the transfer market is the answer – and it might be if we were talking hundreds of millions. But this summer, the answer to improving the squad could be spending less.
Your headline says it all,20 years of low spending hasn’t helped us what’s different about now.
VDV is my fave player of the last 30 years. Played with a swagger, an arrogance that oozed class and quality……..for 70 minutes, then his poor, old legs packed in! When he ruffled Wilshere’s hair after merging him twice. Brilliant.
They both come hand in hand. Big transfers demand big wages. The odd one or two marquee signing would be nice as cowspur recently pointed out klinsman was our last world class signing. Van der vaart was up there for me.. But more importantly is the whole transfer/scouting structure needs changing. We need to buy clever.. Like sign a striker or a fullback or a proper centre midfielder rather than wingers and goalies. Spending on decent players rather than rubbish. Club record signings on lads who dont have it upstaires to play or who can’t manage 90mins, ever, is really quite worrying.
Falque could play.
Fans can get distracted by the lure of big transfers, but something that is perhaps more important is the wages, that’s how you attract the big names, until we pay City and Liverpool type wages we’re always playing catch up.