The Lilywhites got it badly wrong with the signing of one expensive dud..
Tottenham Hotspur, under the frugal chairmanship of Daniel Levy, have often been an outfit ridiculed for failing to secure transfer targets due to their adversity towards spending big.
So often this has held them back, but even when success seemed right around the corner, they proved that huge investments do not guarantee silverware and sustainable progress.
In fact, arguably the darkest years in the club’s recent history have come within the last few campaigns, as the end of Mauricio Pochettino’s reign saw some questionable signings, before Jose Mourinho, Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte were then handed huge fees to throw around too.
Naturally, to compete at the pinnacle of the modern game such astronomical figures seemingly must be spent. However, there was a time when the £63m they spent to buy Tanguy Ndombele, or the £60m unloaded on Richarlison, would have funded an entire squad overhaul.
For example, as Gareth Bale continued to outgrow north London, with his performances meriting a greater stage with which to showcase his quality, Real Madrid were the willing recipients of his services.
Breaking the world-record fee at the time, offering a mouth-watering £85m, it is ludicrous to view the current market and see that such a figure would be the equivalent of signing someone of Manchester United’s Antony, for example.
However, at the time this was a huge sum, which manager Andre Villas-Boas was tasked with reinvesting.
How did Spurs spend the Gareth Bale money?
With those funds, the Portuguese boss clearly felt like bolstering the entire playing squad was a far wiser move than seeking to spend it all as a direct replacement for the unimitable Welshman.
Had he spent with some intelligence, perhaps it might have been a strategy that earned success.
However, as it turned out, this was a disastrous use of precious funds, with arguably only one of the seven employed to offset such a huge absence earning any long-term success.
Immediately, Paulinho, Nacer Chadli, Etienne Capoue and Vlad Chiriches were all found out to be far from the required level, although admittedly they were all the cheapest of the bunch aside from the Brazilian.
The peaks of their respective careers were hardly lofty, but they were definitely reached outside of north London.
Players Signed with the Gareth Bale Money
Fee Paid
Paulinho (Corinthians)
£17m
Christian Eriksen (Ajax)
£11m
Roberto Soldado (Valencia)
£26m
Nacer Chadli (FC Twente)
£7m
Etienne Capoue (Toulouse)
£9.3m
Vlad Chiriches (Steaua Bucharest)
£8.5m
Erik Lamela (AS Roma)
£25.8m
Information via GIVEMESPORT
Then came the big acquisitions, with Erik Lamela proving to be the largest investment, seen as a key successor to the Southampton academy graduate. Just 37 goals in a whopping 256 games showcased his failure to live up to such billing, and his exit was sealed when the Lilywhites had to pay Sevilla to take him, receiving the equally disappointing Byran Gil in his place.
Christian Eriksen, many would agree, marked a sole incredible investment given how important he became despite costing just £11.5m – scoring 69 goals and registering 90 assists in 405 games in all competitions.
And then there was Roberto Soldado.
Joining from Valencia, the Spanish striker had scored 17 goals in La Liga the season before moving and offered great promise as the man to reignite their strike force for the foreseeable future. In fact, across all competitions, the clinical marksman had recorded an impressive 33 goal contributions that year.
However, what occurred was nothing short of diabolical, as his profligacy led to him scoring just 13 goals before departing after only two years.
Journalist Keith Andrew would claim after just one year in England: “Soldado has to be one of the worst buys of the season.”
If anything, it could actually be argued that the 5 foot 10 flop is still one of the worst pound-for-pound signings in the club’s history.
How much did Spurs pay for Roberto Soldado?
Admittedly, at the time of signing the experienced marksman, the fee paid marked a fair price for someone who had proven so prolific in his homeland. It was only once he tried translating his form elsewhere that it became a waste.
After all, he had only cost £26m, and for what his form for Los Ches suggested, that arguably marked a bargain.
However, with his aforementioned goal record simply terrible, and the former Real Madrid dud offering even less in terms of general hold-up play, his departure in 2015 was a welcome one to compound their failure to reinvest the Bale money wisely.
What was Roberto Soldado’s salary at Spurs?
Given the faith Villas-Boas had in Soldado to uphold his strike force for the foreseeable future, an equally mouth-watering salary was handed to the failure to go alongside the huge initial outlay used to even tempt his club to sell.
The £106k-per-week he was awarded marked a huge figure at the time, and allowed him to amass a further £5.53m per year.
Therefore, across the two short years he spent in north London, the 12-cap former international would pluck £11.06m in added fees, taking the total sum of his cost to the club up to £37.06m. This meant that for every goal the club paid £2.85m.
Did Roberto Soldado deserve to earn £106k-per-week?
It should come as a surprise to absolutely no one that Soldado was not worth the salary he was graced with, given the high expectations placed upon him that were never imagined.
After all, those beliefs were only intensified when he scored on his league debut to hand them a win over Crystal Palace, leading to more hype from his manager: “Roberto’s a real out and out striker. He’s not been here a lot because of the Confederations Cup but he’ll get fitter and sharper and will be even better.”
Everyone is well aware of how the story went after that clash, with it being only downhill from there as these words rang empty.
How much has Roberto Soldado earned in his career?
Despite his torrid tenure in England, Soldado actually remained largely a consistent and threatening striker for the bulk of his career. Perhaps that tough period with Spurs could even be chalked down to homesickness, as seven of the other eight clubs he played for were all based in Spain.
The 38-year-old would score an admirable 82 in 141 Valencia appearances, and later on notched 33 in 66 for Getafe, and 12 in 55 for Villarreal, via Transfermarkt.
Therefore, it is hard to argue that he was not good value for his total career earnings, which reached a mouth-watering £25.1m after his most recent contract with Levante ended.
The August just gone marked the month where the enigmatic Soldado called time on a career buoyed by goals scored wherever he went. However, for fans of English football, he will likely go down as one of the worst signings ever, despite how desperate he was to succeed, and how he still holds an affiliation with the club years after his exit.
