Spurs wasted £38.6m on Mourinho dud who’s earning more than Van de Ven

Ange Postecoglou has been answerable for Tottenham Hotspur for slightly below a season and a half now, and it might be honest to say he is greater than made his mark.

The workforce not play the mind-numbingly boring soccer they did below earlier bosses, as an alternative they’re now one of the crucial entertaining sides within the nation.

Furthermore, the Australian has additionally been in a position to usher in quite a few his personal gamers to change the squad whereas additionally seeing a few of these he would not need go the opposite means.

Nevertheless, he has not been in a position to utterly rework the squad, as exemplified by a defensive flop signed by José Mourinho in 2020, a flop who has value the membership thousands and thousands and earns greater than the extremely essential Micky van de Ven.

Van de Ven’s significance to Spurs

Now, there are a number of vitally essential gamers in Postecoglou’s Spurs squad, from the mercurial brilliance of Dejan Kulusevski, the newfound goalscoring reliability of Brennan Johnson or the customarily spectacular shot-stopping skills of the now injured Guglielmo Vicario.

Nevertheless, when you had been to ask a bunch of followers simply who they thought the Lilywhites’ most essential participant was, we would hazard a guess that almost all reply can be Van de Ven.

The Dutchman joined the North Londoners from VfL Wolfsburg for £43m final summer time, and whereas he wasn’t essentially a family title amongst Premier League followers on the time, he definitely is now and that is down to 2 causes.

The primary is one thing all the very best centre-backs possess however is virtually unimaginable to quantify: match intelligence.

Not like his defensive companion Cristian Romero, who has constructed a popularity as being considerably of a hothead, the previous Wolfsburg ace often seems to be calm and composed.

Whenever you watch him all through a recreation, as a rule, he makes the appropriate selections and finds himself in the appropriate positions, though that’s helped by the second motive he is so extremely considered: his unbelievable pace.

Sure, the brand new Flying Dutchman has the uncommon trait of being a blisteringly quick defender, which permits him to keep up a highline along with his teammates after which cowl again when wanted to chop off counter-attacks, and that is one thing the workforce have sorely missed when he is been injured.

In all, the Wormer-born titan is a necessary member of Postecoglou’s facet, and on prime of excelling as a centre-back, he can also fill in at left-back, which is attention-grabbing, as that is the pure place of arguably the least essential participant within the squad.

The Mourinho flop who’s value Spurs thousands and thousands

So, to get straight to the purpose, the participant in query is Spanish left-back Sergio Reguilon, who was signed by Mourinho in 2020 for an enormous fee of £32m, which now seems to be like a daft amount of cash to spend on a participant who could not purchase a begin.

Life in North London began properly sufficient for the previous Actual Madrid prospect, and in his first two campaigns for the membership, he offered six assists and scored two goals, however partway by means of the second, the club appointed Antonio Conte, who ruthlessly reduce him from the workforce forward of the 22/23 marketing campaign, sending him on loan to Atlético Madrid as an alternative.

Upon his return from the Spanish capital, it was clear that Postecoglou additionally did not fancy the 27-year-old and despatched him to Manchester United for six months and, after that, to Brentford for the second half of the season.

Amazingly, regardless of having all this expertise, the Madrid-born defender has solely made it onto the bench twice this season, in opposition to Coventry Metropolis in September after which in opposition to Fulham on the weekend, so it might be fully honest to say his profession in North London is over.

What makes all of this worse is that Spurs have been paying the as soon as promising full-back £53k-per-week whereas he is been in N17, so if you add up the weeks he is not been on mortgage, plus his preliminary £32m payment, he is value the Lilywhites an eye-watering £38.6m, which is outrageous for a participant who has made just 67 appearances in four years.

Damaged down, that involves £576k-per-appearance, £19.3m-per-goal, £6.4m-per-assist and £4.8m-per-goal-involvement, which may hardly be described as worth for cash, particularly when Van de Ven is earning less at £50k-per-week.

Finally, whereas Reguilon is not a horrible participant, it is clear he has no future at Spurs, and so the membership must be doing the whole lot they’ll to maneuver him on as quickly as potential, and based on reports last month, that may really be occurring.

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