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#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.
