That seems right to me. Every time I hear we got someone for around 10 million I get very hopeful. Then I look him up and say to myself, for the most part, could we really have gotten him for that? And then he turns out to be VDV, Lloris, Eriksen or Vertonghen. Funny how a good chunk of our very best signings come from one tiny part of the world, which also happens to be that part nearest London: Belgium, France, Denmark, the Netherlands. Wales, come to think of it. I heard the same thing: also, that Lamela’s fee was much more incentive-laden than Soldado’s. So the real numbers may (and I’m making a hazy guess) be more like 20 million and 15 million for Soldado and Lamela, so far.
I just get the impression that Spurs just bought anyone with a name so they didn't let the tax people get a big check.But what do I know? The berbatof "I want to go to United,mummy! or I won't play" thing......I don't think I'll ever forget that!
.....and Soldado hitting the crossbar while standing under it.....I don't think I'll ever forget that one either!!!!!!!
Okay - here's the definitive list as of this website: http://www.soccerbase.com/teams/team.sd?team_id=2590&team2_id=142&teamTabs=h2h&teamTabs=transfers 88 Gazza 2 91 Durie 2.2 94 Dumitrescu 2.6 94 Popescu 2.9 96 Vega 3.75 97 Ferdinand 6 00 Rebrov 11 07 Bent 16.5 07 Modric 16.6 13 Paulinho 17 13 Lamela 25.7 13 Soldado 26 As previously discussed - the fees for Lamela and Soldado are probably a bit iffy. But anyway. Wow - that is absolutely *not* a list of our best players of the last 27 years, is it? Ramon Vega?! Just goes to show how risky transfers are. Modric and Gazza aside it's hard to say that any of those players are/were key parts of their teams, never mind particularly good players for us. Also worth noting how few transfers over a year used to be common. Christ there were dark days, though. One year our only two signings all year were Justin Edinburgh and John Hendry! The year we signed Durie he was our only signing that entire year! We signed 15 in the 04/05 season! Anyway, the lesson to learn, I guess, is that we should never again break our transfer record. (note - if you go to the website above they group the years together weirdly and wrongly so those figures are from the dates given, not the years the website sorted them into)
Less adjustment needed, closer to home. I really think we often underestimate how difficult it is for these players sometimes. Yes, some can do it easily, but still.
Simply being a fluent English speaker has to help. Not great if the keeper yells to leave it, and you think he means to clear it. Lamela may speak comfortably with Pochettino, but the language on the field is still English.
We signed Armstrong for £4.5m in 1995, so Vega was never our record signing. Thank the small mercies and all that...
I have always assumed that a club will almost immediately be teaching the players not just English but the very particular vocabulary necessary for football and that they almost shouldn't be on the pitch til they have mastered the likes of "man on", "square", "turn and go" etc. I wonder if anyone can confirm this?
Wasn't Gomes somewhere around the £8m mark too. Fantastic keeper IIRC Jenas would have been roughly the same I presume. Good servant to the club if not the best signing we ever made.
Ahh, the enigma that is Gomes. A man who could make the most impossible of saves yet dropped the easiest of catches. If Gomes was actually able to catch the ball you could have made a case for him being one of the best keepers around... But he can't, so that ends there JJ tended to be superb against Arsenal yet average to poor in most other games. Played a big role in getting us back up the table though, he was one of the first key signings of the "comeback era" so to speak, where we stopped being mid-to-bottom half of the table and actually began challenging for UEFA Cup places.
JJ was good, the problem i think most fans had was that he could have been so much more. Which as you say he often showed against Arsenal. Its similar with Dembele. They've GOT it, they just only sometimes USE it.
Yeah definitely. Mousa really annoys me, he has the most unreal natural talent I've seen yet only seems to perform at about 50% capacity. He can glide past players similar to how Zidane used too (not comparing either though for the record) and his strength on the ball is phenomenal, yet once he's gone past a player he seems to not know what to do and usually plays a side wards pass. I genuinely believe he could/ could have been one of the best CM's on the planet but he himself is holding his potential back.
Dembele really needs a right foot to get to the next level (whatever that is for him). Often i think his tendency to slow the pace and turn is because he is so reluctant to pass with it. The oppo must know this too and force him onto that side.
He broke forward against Arsenal 2 or 3 times only to check onto his left foot just as he neared the right hand side of their box IIRC. Only once did he manage to do anything meaningful with the ball from that situation. Another time the ball broke to him and he did his man and shot with his right, that was Kane's offside chance. Dembele is too one sided and doesn't see the game like Eriksen and Kane do. His strength on the ball and ability to beat the first man or two is phenomenal but he just doesn't have enough after that.
