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When Tottenham Hotspur sold Gareth Bale to Real Madrid in the summer of 2013 for a then-world record fee of £85m, it was made clear quite quickly that the money would be available to then-Spurs boss Andre Villas-Boas in order to reinforce his squad – and the Portuguese boss did just that, splashing out around £109m on 7 new players.
Unfortunately for Villas-Boas, the signings did not really pay off – for the most part – and a famous taunt suggested that Spurs had “sold an iPhone, and bought a calculator, a camera, a phone and an alarm clock”.
Christian Eriksen departure from North London this week now means that of the 7 players signed by Spurs in the summer of 2013, only Erik Lamela remains. Here is a look at each of the players signed following the departure of Bale – and how they fared at the club.
1. Paulinho
The first man to be signed during Andre Villas-Boas’ spending spree, Spurs broke their own transfer record by paying £17m to bring in Brazilian midfielder Paulinho from Corinthians. Hopes were high for the box-to-box midfielder at Tottenham, particularly as his signing came just weeks after he’d helped Brazil to their triumph in the 2013 Confederations Cup, scoring 2 goals including the winner in the semi-final against Uruguay.
The Brazilian’s Spurs career got off to a tremendous start; he was named Man of the Match in their opening day victory over Crystal Palace, and then scored 3 times in his first 8 appearances for the club, including a last-minute winner in a match against Cardiff City.
Unfortunately, things went downhill for Paulinho after he was sent off during a 0-5 loss to Liverpool. When he returned after suspension, Villas-Boas had been fired and replaced by Tim Sherwood, and while he was able to end the season with 7 league goals, he struggled to really impress and was then largely frozen out by Mauricio Pochettino in his second season at the club, starting just 3 matches in the Premier League.
With his Spurs career clearly over, the Brazilian was sold to Chinese side Guangzhou Evergrande in the summer of 2015 for a fee of £9.9m – and from there his career surprisingly got back on track, as he moved to Barcelona for the 2017-18 season and helped them to a La Liga title before returning to China one season later.
Rating: 2/5
2. Nacer Chadli
Versatile Belgian midfielder Nacer Chadli cost Spurs just £7m to sign from Dutch side FC Twente, and was one of the lesser hyped signings of 2013 despite Andre Villas-Boas apparently tracking him for some time. Chadli initially struggled for form in North London, and made just 15 starts in his first season at the club, scoring just 1 goal in the process.
However, when Mauricio Pochettino arrived at White Hart Lane in the summer of 2014, the Belgian’s Spurs career suddenly took off. Chadli scored 2 goals in a win over QPR on the second matchday of the 2014-15 season, and then became one of Pochettino’s key men, making 35 Premier League appearances, scoring 11 goals and registering 5 assists too.
Chadli’s influence began to wane in the 2015-16 season due to the emergence of new midfielders like Dele Alli and Son Heung-Min, but he was still able to make a total of 29 Premier League appearances, scoring 3 goals and registering 2 assists in the process, as Tottenham pushed hard for their first-ever Premier League title.
After finishing 3rd instead, the Belgian was sold as part of Pochettino’s squad revamp that summer, and moved to West Bromwich Albion for £14m – making Spurs a £7m profit in the process. He went onto star for Belgium in the 2018 World Cup and now plays in his home country for Anderlecht.
Rating: 3/5
3. Roberto Soldado
With top scorer Gareth Bale sold to Real Madrid, Tottenham clearly needed a new goal threat in the summer of 2013 and the man that Andre Villas-Boas turned to was Valencia’s Roberto Soldado. The Spaniard had scored 30 goals in 46 games for Los Ches in the previous season, and Villas-Boas clearly had high hopes for him – enough to make Tottenham break their transfer record by paying £26m to bring him to White Hart Lane.
Soldado started at Spurs well enough; his goals from the penalty spot handed Villas-Boas’ side two wins from their opening two games, but alarm bells began to ring when it took him until late October to find the back of the net from open play. The Spaniard ended 2013-14 with just 6 Premier League goals to his name – and was widely considered one of the season’s biggest flops.
The striker was given a second chance by the arrival of Mauricio Pochettino as the team’s new boss in the summer of 2014, but he soon found himself outshone by youngster Harry Kane, who burst onto the scene as Spurs’ new goalscoring hero. Soldado ended the 2014-15 campaign having started just 7 Premier League games, scoring 1 goal in the process.
Unsurprisingly, the summer of 2015 saw him move back to Spain with Villarreal, who paid just £10m for the striker – meaning Spurs made a marked loss on their investment. Currently with Granada, Soldado has never scored more than 10 goals in a season since leaving Tottenham.
Rating: 1/5
4. Etienne Capoue
Signed from French side Toulouse for a fee of £9m, Etienne Capoue had starred for his boyhood club for 5 seasons before moving to Tottenham, where Andre Villas-Boas hoped to use him as the holding man in his midfield. And in his opening handful of games, it looked like the Portuguese boss had found a gem of a player.
Unfortunately, more than most of the signings on this list, Capoue was badly affected when Villas-Boas was fired and replaced by Tim Sherwood at the same time that the Frenchman was recuperating from an ankle injury. Sherwood clearly didn’t rate the midfielder, and used him sparingly – resulting in him making just 13 Premier League appearances.
Capoue fared a little better in the following season under new boss Mauricio Pochettino, but despite making 11 starts largely early on in the campaign, he eventually found his position as the team’s holding midfielder usurped by England youngster Eric Dier and subsequently fell out of favour with the Argentine manager.
The French midfielder was sold to newly-promoted Watford in the summer of 2016 for a fee of £6.3m, and has been a much bigger hit there than he was at Tottenham. At the time of writing, he has made over 150 appearances for the Hornets, and was named as their Player of the Year for the 2018-19 season.
Rating: 2/5
5. Vlad Chiriches
The lone defender among the 7 players signed with the Bale money, Romania’s Vlad Chiriches was bought in from Steaua Bucharest for a fee of £8.5m, and he started the 2013-14 season strongly, forming a partnership at the heart of Spurs’ defence alongside Michael Dawson. The Romanian even scored a tremendous goal in a 1-2 win over Fulham in December.
Unfortunately, despite this good start to his career at White Hart Lane, things went south quickly for Chiriches after the departure of Villas-Boas at the end of 2013. New boss Tim Sherwood clearly didn’t trust the Romanian – and a video that emerged of him stumbling drunkenly out of a Bucharest nightclub in January 2014 didn’t help matters.
Chiriches was given a second chance to impress when Mauricio Pochettino took over at Spurs in the summer of 2014, but clearly the Argentine was unconvinced, preferring a defensive partnership between Jan Vertonghen and Federico Fazio. The Romanian made just 8 starts and was sent off in a 3-0 loss to Stoke, with the game being his final appearance for the club.
The summer of 2015 saw Chiriches sold to Napoli for a fee of £4.5m, and he ended up spending 4 injury-hit seasons there before moving to Sassuolo on loan at the end of the 2018-19 season. Overall, the defender was a major flop at Tottenham – second only to Soldado.
Rating: 1/5
6. Christian Eriksen
Easily the most successful of Andre Villas-Boas’ 2013 signings, Danish international Christian Eriksen cost Tottenham just £11m from Ajax in what was a major coup at the time given his status as one of the game’s hottest prospects. It didn’t take long for the Dane to make an impact, either, as he registered his first assist for the club on his debut, setting up a goal for Gylfi Sigurdsson in a win over Norwich.
It would prove to be the first of many for Eriksen, who ended his first season at Spurs with 7 goals and 8 assists in 25 Premier League appearances and was then named the club’s Player of the Year. When Mauricio Pochettino arrived at the club in the summer of 2014, the Dane continued to establish himself as a key player, and over the seasons that followed, he became recognised as the side’s creative hub.
Eriksen ended up spending 6 and a half seasons in total in North London, scoring 69 goals and registering 89 assists along the way. He was also involved in some of Spurs’ most iconic moments in recent years – goals against Real Madrid, Manchester United and Chelsea in particular standing out – and helped them to the 2018-19 Champions League final.
This month has seen the Danish playmaker make a move to Inter Milan after protracted negotiations with Spurs did not result in a new contract at the club; some Spurs fans were unhappy with the way in which he chose to leave North London, but realistically, few could complain about his performances during his time there.
Rating: 5/5
7. Erik Lamela
Tottenham broke their transfer record for the third time in the summer of 2013 to bring Argentine winger Erik Lamela to White Hart Lane, handing Roma a large sum of £30m for his services, and while he hasn’t quite lived up to the hype he garnered upon arrival just yet, there’s still time for him; the 27-year old is the only one of the 7 signings to remain at the club.
Over his 7 seasons with Tottenham, Lamela has offered glimpses of his genuinely brilliant abilities; a rabona goal in a Europa League match against Asteras Tripoli, a winner against West Ham and goals against Barcelona and Manchester City. Unfortunately, injuries have largely curtailed his Spurs career, with a hip injury reducing him to just a handful of games in 2016 and 2017.
Now finally fit again, Lamela remains in current manager Jose Mourinho’s first team plans, and he’s made 8 appearances under the Portuguese boss since his return from injury last December. Whether his future lies away from North London could depend on how well he can keep himself fit going forward, but if he can avoid injury then there’s no reason why he can’t go on to find success with Tottenham.
Rating: 3/5
