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After two fruitless transfer windows, this summer has seen Tottenham Hotspur leap right back into the transfer market – big time – by spending well over £150m on new players to bolster their squad for the upcoming 2019/20 season.
Spurs chairman Daniel Levy has often come under criticism for not being willing to spend money like the Premier League’s other big clubs, and it is true that Tottenham haven’t spent the same kind of money as rivals like Manchester United, Manchester City, and Liverpool over the past few years.
The idea that they haven’t spent a lot at all, however, is somewhat of a myth. In particular, since the arrival of Mauricio Pochettino in 2014 – and the push from Spurs to break into the upper echelon of the Premier League – the London side have brought in plenty of talent for some substantial fees.
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Here are Tottenham’s 10 most expensive signings of all time.
#10 Serge Aurier - £22.5m from Paris St. Germain – 2017
Basically a like-for-like replacement for Kyle Walker – who was sold to Manchester City in the same transfer window – Ivorian right-back Serge Aurier was signed by Tottenham for a large fee of £22.5m from Paris St. Germain in the summer of 2017.
Aurier brought a somewhat crazy reputation to London with him; he’d been convicted of assaulting a police officer in France a year earlier, but while his off-pitch behavior hasn’t made any news, it’d be hard to deem his move a complete success.
To date, Aurier has made just 41 appearances for Spurs, with only 25 of them coming in the Premier League. Part of this has been down to some injury issues, but for the most part, the Ivorian has been largely unable to establish himself as Mauricio Pochettino’s first choice in the right-back booth.
Flashes of brilliance have been shown – Aurier was fantastic against Borussia Dortmund in last season’s Champions League, for instance – but more often than not he’s been wildly inconsistent, and it’s hardly a surprise that rumors of his exit from Tottenham have been flying around in recent weeks.
If he does remain, 2019/20 is likely the last chance saloon for him.
#9 Ryan Sessegnon - £25m from Fulham – 2019
One of Tottenham’s three arrivals during the current transfer window, Ryan Sessegnon represents a classic Mauricio Pochettino signing. He’s young, massively talented and has huge amounts of somewhat untapped potential. Rumors of the left-sided player moving to Tottenham have been swirling around for a couple of seasons now so it came as no surprise to see the move finally materialize.
Sessegnon struggled somewhat for Fulham in 2018/19, but given the issues at the club – they went through 3 managers before their relegation – his sub-par performances can probably be excused, and the 19-year old still managed 2 goals and 6 assists in 37 Premier League appearances.
Given his potential – Sessegnon has been compared to Gareth Bale due to his ability to play as both a left-back and a left-sided attacker – the initial £25m that Spurs have paid for him could end up representing a bargain in the future. Tottenham fans will hope that Pochettino can get the best out of him – and if he can, he will likely be a huge success.
#8 Lucas Moura - £25.5m from Paris St. Germain – 2018
Flying Brazilian winger Lucas Moura joined Tottenham in January 2018 following a largely unfruitful stint at Paris St. Germain, and initially it appeared like a bad deal for Mauricio Pochettino and his side. Lucas looked somewhat out of shape upon arrival and was clearly rusty after being frozen out at PSG for the first half of the season.
Thankfully though, Pochettino kept faith with the winger and that faith was largely repaid last season. Used primarily as a wide forward, Lucas made 32 appearances for Spurs in the Premier League and scored a total of 10 goals, including a brace against Manchester United and a hat-trick against Huddersfield Town – the first to be scored at Tottenham’s new stadium.
He was also fantastic in the club’s unlikely run to the Champions League final, scoring a key goal against Barcelona in the group stage and then of course, his famous hat-trick against Ajax to win the semi-final.
While he was controversially left out of the starting line-up for the Champions League final, Lucas is expected to play a big part in Spurs’ upcoming season and due to the Ajax hat-trick alone it’d be hard to claim that he’s been anything but a hit. He’ll likely remain a cult hero at the club for years to come.
#7 Heung-Min Son - £27m from Bayer Leverkusen – 2015
It’s almost hard to believe now, but shortly after his move to Tottenham from Bayer Leverkusen, Heung-Min Son was practically considered a big-money flop, and after struggling throughout 2015/16 he reportedly considered asking Mauricio Pochettino for an exit from the club.
Three seasons on, it’s almost certain that any Tottenham fan would be glad that an exit never happened. Something seemed to click for Son at Spurs during 2016/17, and suddenly the South Korean international began to bang goals in for fun, ending the season with a haul of 21 – behind only Harry Kane and Dele Alli in Tottenham’s scoring charts.
Since then, he’s gone from strength to strength. Last season saw Son deliver a further 20 goals, including a brilliant solo strike against Chelsea, a last-gasp winner against Newcastle and three key goals in the Champions League quarter-final victory over Manchester City.
Now one of Pochettino’s top men, the wide forward should be considered one of the Argentine boss’s biggest transfer successes.
#6 Erik Lamela - £27m from Roma – 2013
One of two players on this list not signed by Mauricio Pochettino, Argentine winger/forward Erik Lamela was signed by Andre Villas-Boas as part of a massive spending spree in the summer of 2013 following the sale of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for a world-record fee of £85m. Six seasons on, would Lamela be considered a hit or a miss? To be quite honest the jury is still out.
The Argentina international has definitely shown flashes of the brilliance that made Spurs splash out what was a club-record fee at the time, but he’s also never truly established himself as a first-team player at the club, as he’s made just 129 Premier League appearances since signing, with a lot of them coming from the substitute’s bench. He’s also only scored 28 goals in all competitions.
It must be said, however, that Lamela has suffered from various injuries since joining; a hip injury kept him out for practically the entire 2016/17 and a large part of 2017/18 too, and he scored a handful of key goals last season, most notably the winner against West Ham in October.
Lamela will be looking for more consistency in 2019/20 following a strong pre-season, and if he can deliver, he may yet live up to his transfer fee.
#5 Roberto Soldado - £27m from Valencia – 2013
Another of the players signed in Andre Villas-Boas’s big splurge in the summer of 2013, it’s safe to say that Spanish striker Roberto Soldado didn’t fare quite as well as the likes of Christian Eriksen and Erik Lamela who joined in the same transfer window.
Soldado was expected to provide the goals to fire Tottenham back into the Champions League, but unfortunately he found life in London a struggle. It wasn’t all bad to begin with.
Goals from the penalty spot gave Spurs victories against Crystal Palace and Swansea in the first two games of 2013/14, but Soldado quickly began to misfire soon after and only delivered a further four Premier League goals all season, with just two coming from open play.
By the time the season ended, he was widely considered one of the year’s worst Premier League signings. 2014/15 went equally badly for the Spaniard.
Soldado scored just 1 league goal in 24 appearances, found his spot usurped by youngster Harry Kane – who scored 24 goals – and also went viral due to a catastrophic miss in a Europa League tie with Fiorentina. In the end, Spurs cut their losses and sold him to Villareal in the summer of 2015 for just £10m, making him arguably one of the club’s worst-ever flops.
#4 Moussa Sissoko - £31.5m from Newcastle United – 2017
The story of Moussa Sissoko’s time at Tottenham is perhaps one of the greatest triumphs of Mauricio Pochettino’s coaching career, as prior to his stellar 2018/19 season, the Frenchman was looking set to join Roberto Soldado, Paulinho and David Bentley on the list of big-name signings who flopped at Spurs.
Signed from relegated Newcastle on transfer deadline day in August 2017, he’d always been somewhat of an inconsistent talent, and many Spurs fans immediately labeled him a “panic buy”.
His first season at the club appeared to confirm those fears, too. Sissoko made just eight Premier League starts in 2016/17 and didn’t score a goal, and it appeared that his time at Spurs would probably be a short one. But Pochettino stuck with the Frenchman and while he improved somewhat in 2017/18, it was 2018/19 that saw him prove his worth.
Converted by Pochettino from a winger into a deep-lying midfielder, Sissoko’s tough tackling, physically dynamic style suddenly made him almost indispensable and he ended up making 29 appearances in the league, adding some much-needed steel in the center of the park.
The arrival of Tanguy N’Dombele may well bring his spot in the starting XI into question in 2019/20, but for now, Sissoko has cemented himself as one of Pochettino’s best signings, surprising everyone.
#3 Davinson Sanchez - £36m from Ajax – 2017
It came as somewhat of a shock to a lot of fans in the summer of 2017 when Tottenham broke their record transfer fee to bring 21-year old Colombian defender Davinson Sanchez to the club from Ajax, but despite costing a huge £36m, it’d be hard to classify him as anything but a success.
Sanchez has added pace, power, and stability to Mauricio Pochettino’s already-impressive defense, and his young age means he should be a staple at the club for the best part of a decade.
The Colombian made more appearances in the Premier League – 31 – in his debut season than he did the last term, but a lot of that was due to the re-emergence of Toby Alderweireld, who had suffered from hamstring injuries throughout 2017/18.
Even so, he still appeared on 37 occasions in all competitions last season and was able to score his first goal for Tottenham in February’s victory over Leicester City. Given Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen are both the wrong side of 30 years of age, it’s expected that Sanchez will become Tottenham’s key center-half in the upcoming 2019/20 season.
Having cut his teeth alongside the Belgian duo for the past two seasons, there’s no doubt that he’s ready. In a few years that £36m could represent a bargain.
#2 Giovani Lo Celso - £55m from Real Betis* - 2019
Signed from La Liga side Real Betis on the deadline day of the most recent transfer window, Argentine playmaker Giovani Lo Celso’s transfer fee comes with an asterisk, as technically speaking, Tottenham have signed him on loan – for a reported fee of £15m – for a season with an “obligation to buy” at the end of the season for a further £40m, assuming they qualify for a European competition in 2020/21.
Of course, that makes his total fee £55m. Why the loan move?
Reportedly, the idea is for Betis to avoid having to pay such a large sell-on fee to Paris St. Germain, from whom they signed Lo Celso last summer. PSG are entitled to 20% of any fee for Lo Celso, and of course, 20% of £40m is far less than 20% of £55m. At any rate, Mauricio Pochettino has been tracking his countryman for some time, and Tottenham fans will be elated to see the deal go over the line.
Whether Lo Celso replaces Christian Eriksen – who could yet leave during this transfer window – or joins the club to compliment him is still a question mark, but there’s no question around his talents.
The Argentine scored 9 goals and made 4 assists in La Liga last season, and if that form translates to the Spurs, there’s no doubt that he’ll become a huge success there.
#1 Tanguy N’Dombele - £55m from Lyon – 2019
After going through two straight transfer windows that saw Tottenham come away empty-handed, Spurs fans were absolutely over the moon when the signing of midfielder Tanguy N’Dombele – for a club record fee of £55m from French side Lyon – was confirmed in late July.
The signing was also a huge boost to Mauricio Pochettino, who apparently convinced the Frenchman to sign rather than make a reported move to Manchester United. What should N’Dombele bring to Spurs? Some much-needed dynamism in midfield, hopefully.
While the likes of Harry Winks and Moussa Sissoko performed well last season, Spurs struggled when one of the two – usually Winks – was missing, as attackers like Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli were forced to drop deeper than they’d usually like.
The signing of N’Dombele should close that gap, as the Frenchman is capable of collecting the ball in a deep-lying position and driving forward at pace, as he did so many times for Lyon last season.
With 7 assists and 1 goal to his name, N’Dombele should finally represent a long-term replacement for Moussa Dembele, who was sold last January, and if he can deliver performances like his fantastic one against Manchester City in last season’s Champions League, then he’ll quickly become a big-time fan favorite at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium – and go some way to justifying his transfer fee.
