Date: 14th August 2015 at 11:41am
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With the Spanish striker rumoured to have sealed a move back to his native homeland, with Villarreal looking the likely destination, it leaves Spurs fans wondering, was he our worst ever signing?

He certainly comes close, with only seven Premier League goals in two seasons and a transfer fee of £26m he is definitely up there, but surely we’ve had worse?

1 March 2015 - Capital One Cup - Final 2015 - Chelsea v Tottenham Hotspur - Roberto Soldado of Tottenham Hotspur - Photo: Marc Atkins / Offside.

Sergei Rebrov springs to mind. The Ukrainian formed a deadly strike partnership with Andriy Shevchenko when they both played for Dynamo Kiev, but when he made the move to North London, he struggled to settle in and only managed one season. He wasn’t built for the English game and the same can be said for another striker flop – Helder Postiga. Prolific at international level, the Portuguese again struggled to adapt to the physicality of the Premier League, and both he and Rebrov were sold after one year.

But both were signed for a fraction of the price of Soldado, so the damage doesn’t seem as bad. Then there’s David Bentley. We really thought we were onto something with him, but he also failed to justify his £15m price tag, and despite one or two good performances, was ultimately a spectacular waste of money. However, he did score from the halfway line against Arsenal, so he’ll never go down as the worst signing ever in my book.

Paulinho was again poor and, at £16m, many fans were left scratching their heads as to how on Earth he could justify that price tag, consistently going missing in games with some fans even dubbing him the “Brazilian Jermaine Jenas”, when, in actual fact, he was supposed to be the “Brazilian Frank Lampard”. An awful World Cup campaign followed his first season with Spurs, and he managed a second season before being sold earlier this summer. We managed to recoup £10m of the £16m we paid for him though, so at least we haven’t lost out too much on him!

27 September 2014 Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur Premier League Football ; Erik Lamela of Tottenham. Photo:Mark Leech

Then there’s Erik Lamela. The Argentinian was sold to us under so much hype and promise, but so far he has failed to deliver. He came off the bench in our season opener at Old Trafford so appears to still be in the manager’s plans. At £30m and as Spurs’ record signing, I’m hoping he can still come good. You can see he has bags of natural ability, but so far has only been able to produce that kind of form in fits and bursts. I’m hoping this will be his year, but I’m also very sceptical.

We’ve had plenty of other shocking players in the Premier League era; Andy Reid, Ramon Vega, Paolo Tramezzani, Ben Thatcher, Milenko Acimovic, Hossam Ghaly, Grzegorz Rasiak, Gilberto and many, many more, but I think Soldado could be the very worst. His extortionate price tag and the promise and hype of a consistent 20-goal-a-season striker, make his failure to convert chance, after chance, after chance and his, quite frankly, pathetic goal return considering most of them were penalties, a spectacular flop and consequently, the ultimate Spurs failure. With this conclusion being reached, I can only say good riddance.

COYS.

 
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8 responses to “Is Soldado Spurs’ worst ever signing?”

  1. wes says:

    What a very stupid opinion!

  2. Arnie says:

    Oh come on, pound for pound you have a point but he is most definitely not the worst player we’ve ever signed. Some you list weren’t that bad either, no idea why you would say Thatcher, he wasn’t ‘bad’ at all, why was he bad?? There are plenty that we bought and didn’t make the grade at all, this is just looking at Soldado because of his higher profile. Ridiculous. As much as I think Ade is a good striker (everyone forgets how good he has been in fits and starts) you could argue he is the worst signing ever too then because he continues to take a huge wage for nothing.

  3. PAUL says:

    What about Heurelho Gomes?

  4. dave says:

    Not quite sure Ghaly can be considered in the same category of flop as the others mentioned. He was a very handy player for us until “shirt gate” and didn’t really do much wrong. Rebrov is another I take slight issue with. He top scored for us in his first season Before being pushed to the wing by hoddle who then marginalized him and ultimately phased him out all together.

    The “Big 3” in the magnificent 7 are for me the greatest flops overall when you consider contribution against price tag. Bentley isn’t far off either. The others mentioned, while hardly prolific, weren’t big money either. I myself never expected much or Tramezzani or Acimovic so wouldn’t really consider them flops.

  5. frank d says:

    I totally agree with the opinions on all of the recent record signings, they mirror the total lack of a cohesive transfer policy. We buy players with no thought to them blending into a group, there is no underlying plan, or football philosophy, unlike the Nicholson era when he knew what and who he wanted/needed, and there was continuity.

  6. Mr. Greaves says:

    The answer is “no”.

    He wasn’t even the worst signing in that window, as the Llama is head and tiny shoulders above him in the waste of money category. £30m (allegedly) spent and worth sub £10m.

    Soldado could have produced if the team has made any effort to play to his strengths, but we didn’t.

  7. James says:

    Except the club didn’t pay 26mn. The actual fee was closer to 16mn with a lot of add-ons which sources are confirming never matured (goals scored, champions league qualification etc). And the fee on selling him should be around 10mn. So although he was not a great player, the financial aspects are really not that bad…

  8. ruro says:

    Worst/most disappointing signing in modern time has to be David Bentley…