While they haven’t always had the best of luck when it comes to signing players, Tottenham Hotspur have developed a reputation for being brilliant sellers.
When other Premier League teams lose their best players for low fees or nothing, the Lilywhites have more often than not been able to extract brilliant fees.
There are numerous examples of the North Londoners being able to get enormous paydays for their wantaway stars, including one who earned them a massive profit but has seen his value collapse in recent years.
Spurs' biggest sales
Before we get to the player in question, let’s examine a few of the most significant sales in Spurs’ history, starting with Gareth Bale.
The Welsh icon joined the Lilywhites from Southampton in 2007, and after a tough start that saw him branded a bad luck charm, he eventually became the best player in the entire squad, if not the league.
The 12/13 campaign was his final and best for the club, as, across 44 games, the Cardiff-born megastar scored 26 goals and provided ten assists, which was unsurprisingly enough to court Real Madrid, who, after a protracted saga, agreed to pay a record £85m for the winger.
A decade later, Daniel Levy was negotiating another icon’s exit. Following 435 games, in which he scored 280 goals and provided 61 assists, it was time for England captain Harry Kane to finally leave N17.
Fortunately, there was still a year remaining on the Englishman’s contract, so when Bayern Munich finally got their man, it cost them an eye-watering £86.4m.
These two sales are undoubtedly Spurs’ most famous, but in the years between them, the club sanctioned another megamoney exit for a player who has seen his value collapse in recent seasons.
The former Spurs ace losing his value
The former Spurs star in question is Kyle Walker, who joined the club from Sheffield United in 2009 for a fee Transfermarkt claim to be in the region of £5m.
The Englishman would go on to become a star for the North Londoners and make 229 appearances for the first team, scoring four goals and providing 18 assists in the process, before joining Manchester City in the summer of 2017 for £50m, which was a record for a defender at the time.
Now, while Mauricio Pochettino would likely have preferred keeping the Sheffield-born star, they did exceptionally well to make £45m of profit on the player, and while the 24-year-old has since enjoyed a trophy-laden career at the Etihad, it’s undoubtedly coming to a close.
Man City
311
6
23
Spurs
229
4
18
Sheff Utd
35
0
4
QPR
20
0
4
Aston Villa
18
2
3
Northampton
9
0
0
For example, this season has seen the vastly experienced defender begin to seriously struggle in games, with his performances against Brighton & Hove Albion and Spurs particularly hard to watch.
In the former, he was constantly beaten for pace and skill by Japanese international Kaoru Mitoma, and in the latter, he was poor for the entire game and humiliated at the very end when Timo Werner beat him to the ball that set up Brennan Johnson’s goal.
It might sound harsh, but it’s an opinion shared by former professional Tony Cascarino, who described the Englishman’s performance as “embarrassing” and claimed that he has “definitely lost half a yard.”
Unsurprisingly, such a dramatic downturn in form has not gone unnoticed by the decision-makers at the club, and based on reports from late last month, they are now willing to sell him for just £15m, or £35m less than they signed him for.
Ultimately, nobody can argue against Walker’s incredible career, but at the same time, it feels impossible to claim that it’s not over and that Spurs did well to make such a massive profit on him when they agreed to sell him in 2017.
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ByJack Salveson Holmes