Part 2: English Premier League - Biggest failures of the summer transfer window
The concept of too much of a good thing is alien to most footballers. Although it might seem to appeal to common sense but sometimes greed is just too much of a factor to let such sense prevail. Tottenham Hotspurs is yet another big name which failed to do what they were supposed to do in the 2010 summer transfer window.
Hotspurs finished fourth in the 2009-2010 Premier League, something that their fans had aspired for ever since the English Premier League took its new format in 1992. Under Redknapp, Tottenham have earned the right to be called “big” because they broke into the top four for the first time in their English Premier League history. In doing so, they successfully qualified for the UEFA Champions League.
Hotspurs at the end of the 2009-2010 league season had four strikers in the shape of Peter Crouch, Defoe, Pavlyuchenko and Robbie Keane. Keane was away on a loan deal to Celtic for the previous league season, so technically Tottenham went through the 2009-10 season with only three centre forwards. It was an understood statement at the end the last league season that Tottenham needed to buy a top quality striker.
Someone who could finish well and be the difference in quality against lower rated but equally organized teams in the UEFA Champions League and the English Premier League. Throughout the 2010 transfer window, Spurs were associated with some good strikers in the market. For example, Harry made encouraging comments about Sevilla’s Luis Fabiano but never managed to bring the Brazilian goal scorer to White Hart Lane.
Redknapp was also reportedly interested in Klaas-Jan Huntelaar as well, who was under contract with the Italian giants A.C Milan but that connection did not work out for the London club as well. It was a tough summer for Tottenham but in there was a bright light at the end of the tunnel for them. On the deadline day, Harry managed to successfully sign Van Der Vaart for a mere 8 million pounds from Real Madrid.
Van Der Vaart is quite a talented player and a recognized skilful midfielder, who plays usually as an attacking midfielder but the wisdom behind this move should be questioned. Regardless of the fact that the move was quite a bargain as figures of around 20 million pounds were being thrown around with regards to the Dutch playmaker.
It is like going to the market to buy grapes but you end up buying papaya because it was much cheaper. A much brighter thing to do would have been to throw such money towards a target man which the Spurs evidently needed. Clearly, Harry Redknapp has apparently messed up the grocery shopping that Tottenham had entrusted him with. Now there is a massive test coming up in the next few months as Hotspurs are going to be facing Inter Milan, who are the current European Champions as well as Werder Bremen in their group stage matches for the UEFA Champions League.
With all due respect to the likes of Defoe, Crouch, Pavlyuchenko and Keane, European football clearly requires another level of class. As even the likes of Ibrahimovic, Higuain and Tevez are yet to make their mark upon Europe’s most difficult club football tournament. So for that reason, it is quite unrealistic to expect the above listed marksmen to deliver every time for Tottenham, that is every time the giants of Europe visit White Hart Lane.
Tottenham did require and still do need a genuine goal scoring machine up front. Apparently Harry Redknapp thought otherwise and considered Van Der Vaart to be a better option rather than actually going for what his team essentially needed - a risky move which has a huge possibility to backfire.
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