If Harry Kane gets his move away from Tottenham this summer, few Spurs fans will getting excited about Plan B – using the £100+ transfer fee to build a better squad. That’s because most will remember what happened when Gareth Bale left in 2012.
Bale went to Real Madrid for £82m and Spurs used the money to go on a spending spree, adding six players to the squad. As the table below shows, the only player who turned out to be any good was Christian Eriksen, and he ended up leaving on a free transfer in January 2020.
Of the other five players, only Erik Lamela is still at Spurs, while the rest were moved on at an aggregate loss of £8m. You could argue this is only natural as players get older and their value goes down, but these players’ average age was 22 when Spurs bought them.
Players bought by Spurs in 2012 and what happened next
| Bought(£m) | Sold (£m) | |
| Erik Lamela | 30 | Still at Spurs |
| Christian Eriksen | 11 | Free |
| Nacer Chadli | 7 | 13 |
| Paulinho | 17 | 9.8 |
| Etienne Capoue | 9 | 6 |
| Vlad Chiriches | 8 | 4.5 |
| TOTAL | 82 | 33.3 |
Another way to look at these deals is to consider Tranfer Markt’s current valuations. This shows that these players who were valued at £82m in 2012 are now worth £66m in 2021, a figure made even worse when you consider the hyper-inflation of the transfer market.
Players bought by Spurs in 2012 and TransferMkt value in 2021
Whether Gareth Bale could have carried Spurs over the line to a trophy victory will never be known, but the lack of trophies from the original Plan B must surely worry fans.
Perhaps there is a Plan C that is worth a go. Spurs should try to replace Harry Kane with an equally expensive, and proven, marque player rather than spend £100m and hoping for the best.
Sport.dat 