Being one of the biggest clubs in England, Tottenham Hotspur have been blessed with a plethora of sensational players over the years.
The likes of Jimmy Greaves, Gary Lineker, Ledley King and Harry Kane are just some of the supreme talents who have etched their names into the club’s illustrious history, but as the fans will attest, for all the greats they have seen pull on the shirt, there have been plenty of flops as well.
One such example was Spanish striker Roberto Soldado, who joined the club as part of the not-so ‘magnificent seven’ in the summer of 2013.
The former Valencia ace thoroughly underwhelmed in North London and is rightly remembered as one of the most disappointing transfers in the club’s modern history, but just a few years later, Daniel Levy and Co signed another promising attacker who was arguably even worse and went on to cost the club a pretty penny.
Soldado's underwhelming Spurs stint
In the aftermath of Gareth Bale’s £85m move to Real Madrid in the summer of 2013, Spurs went on a spending spree to try and replace the Welshman’s world-class output, and while the players they signed were nicknamed the ‘magnificent seven’, it would be hard to claim any of them were successes, bar Christian Eriksen, of course.
Soldado’s £26m move to the Lilywhites, a club-record deal, was arguably the standout signing in this batch of new arrivals, and in Levy’s defence, it looked like a superb deal at the time.
In the two campaigns prior, the Valencia-born poacher racked up an astounding tally of 57 goals and 11 assists in 97 matches, meaning he was averaging a goal involvement once every 1.42 games for his hometown club.
Unfortunately for Spurs, his simply sensational goalscoring form came to a shuddering halt in England, and while he still managed to produce a middling return of 16 goals and 11 assists in 76 games for the club, there can be no denying that he was ultimately a flop and a costly one at that.
However, as disappointing as the club’s record-signing was, Levy and Co would make a similar mistake just a few years later, when they signed another prolific forward who ended up being even worse than Soldado in North London.
Vincent Janssen's costly Spurs career
Yes, the goalscorer in question is Dutch centre-forward Vincent Janssen, who joined Spurs in the summer of 2016 alongside Moussa Sissoko, Victor Wanyama and Georges-Kevin N’Koudou.
The then 22-year-old cost the club around £18.6m, and while that sounds like a lot of money, he was arguably worth it at the time.
For example, like Soldado, the promising striker was in a rich vein of form when Levy and Co came knocking, having scored 32 goals and provided seven assists in 49 games for AZ Alkmaar the campaign prior, but like the former Valencia star, this incredible ability to find the back of the net all but disappeared once his transfer had been completed.
In his first season in England, the Heesch-born ace looked totally out of place and could only muster up a rather paltry return of six goals and four assists in 38 games.
Unsurprisingly, this was not enough to justify a place in the first-team squad, and the following season saw him move on loan to Fenerbahçe before he spent his third and final season as a Spurs player sidelined with a foot injury before being sold to Mexican outfit Monterrey for just £6m in July 2019.
Overall, the underwhelming striker, whom Lineker once brutally described as a “poor man’s Soldado,” left Spurs with a tally of six goals and four assists in 42 games, which means that due to his £18.6m transfer fee and the £2.75m he earned in the two campaigns he was actually in North London, he cost the club a whopping £21.3m.
“Janssen is looking a bit like a poor man’s Soldado, you have to feel sorry for him really” – Gary Lineker.
That means that the former AZ ace cost Levy and Co around £507k-per-appearance, £3.5m-per-goal, £5.3m-per-assist and £2.1m-per-goal-involvement.
Transfer Fee
£18.6m
Wages
£2.75m
Total
£21.3m
Appearances
42
Cost per Appearance
£507k
Goals
6
Cost per Goal
£3.5m
Assists
4
Cost per Assist
£5.3m
Goal Involvements
10
Cost per Goal Involvements
£2.1m
Ultimately, while Janssen is far from the worst Spurs player in recent memory, he is one of the most underwhelming ones, and considering the amount of money he cost the club, he can’t be considered anything other than a major flop.
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1 ByEthan LambOct 23, 2024
