Cast your mind back to 2013 when Spurs sold Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for a record-breaking fee of £85m, and over the course of that summer transfer window, the club bought in seven new additions all from overseas clubs.
Two of the biggest signings over the spending spree were Erik Lamela and Roberto Soldado, who have both somewhat underachieved in their respective times at the club. Although, Lamela is improving game by game, he still has scored just two Premier League goals since his arrival from Roma, and for £30m, you would expect a little more from a club-record signing.
Etienne Capoue and Paulinho have just been sold on to other clubs after two seasons at the club, with neither being able to break the solid midfield partnership of Ryan Mason and Nabil Bentaleb. As for Vlad Chiriches in the defence, well, do I need to say anymore?
On the other hand, Christian Eriksen has contributed a number of key late goals in his two years at the club, whilst Nacer Chadli, who had a rocky first season, has been able to put himself on the scoresheet twelve times over the course of last season.
The point I am trying to make is that bringing in players from overseas can very much be like a lucky dip. Some players adapt to the pace and physical demand of the Premier League, whilst others don’t, and sometimes the players that you paid less for can sometimes blossom a whole lot more than your record signing, Christian Eriksen and Nacer Chadli in this case.
After the summer disaster of 2013, I have been of the opinion that we should bring in predominantly English players, or players that have had experience in the Premier League. In the summer of 2014, this improved as Spurs brought in Michel Vorm, Ben Davies, and Eric Dier, who in fact spent his early footballing years in England before moving to Portugal and Sporting Lisbon. All three have been on the fringes of first team football, or have been played out of position when given the chance, so haven’t shown their full potential yet in my opinion.
In that summer window, we also made the signings of Federico Fazio and Benjamin Stambouli, both have failed to prove their worth in their first season at the club, and both were bought from overseas clubs.
As you can see from last year’s signings, and the summer before that, overseas players have been less than successful to say the least in their time’s at the club. However, you can uncover a gem from time to time when recruiting from overseas. Take Luis Suarez for example, or Eden Hazard, both players that Spurs could have signed according to Harry Redknapp.
This summer, I think that so far, Levy, Mitchell and Pochettino have got the balance just right. They have offloaded some of the ‘deadwood’ in Paulinho and Etienne Capoue, and we have brought in two players with Premier League experience, and just the one from overseas, Kevin Wimmer.
When signing a player from a Premier League club, or a player that has just finished a loan spell at a Premier League in our case, then generally you know what you are going to get from them, you do not have this luxary when signing a foreign players as I mentioned earlier.
Adding to the already good additions of Kevin Wimmmer, Kieran Trippier and Toby Alderweield, I would like to see Spurs make a couple more signings in this window. I would like to see a striker brought in, and maybe a holding midfielder. Who do you think Spurs should bring in this summer.
