Better than Tel: Spurs must rue selling Mourinho's "big-game monster"

When Tottenham Hotspur announced the signing of Mathys Tel on loan last month, there was plenty of understandable excitement from their fans.

After all, the North Londoners were getting their hands on an exciting young talent who seemed to be of interest to a number of their Premier League rivals, such as Manchester United.

However, a month on, and it would be fair to describe the Frenchman’s time in the capital as disappointing thus far, and with just a couple of months left of the season, there is a real chance he’ll return to Bayern Munich as a flop.

Worse still, the Frenchman is currently being outperformed by a former Tottenham flop signed by José Mourinho and then sold by Antonio Conte.

Mourinho’s worst Spurs signings

Before getting to the player in question, let’s look at some of the other poor signings the Special One made during his short stint in North London, starting with Matt Doherty.

The Irish international joined Spurs from Wolverhampton Wanderers for around £14.7m in the summer of 2020, and while it looked like a shrewd bit of business at the time, it most certainly was not.

The right-back would make 71 appearances for the club over the next two and a half years, in which he provided eight assists and scored three goals, but failed to ever really impress the fans and was let go for nothing in January 2023.

Mourinho didn’t just make poor permanent signings in N17, though, as he also welcomed Carlos Vinicius to the club from Benfica on loan with a £41m option to buy in October 2020.

The Brazilian forward had scored 24 goals and provided 13 assists in 47 games the campaign prior, so there was some hope that he’d be able to make a real difference for Tottenham.

However, while the Bom Jesus das Selvas-born ace scored six goals and provided three assists in the Europa League and bagged a hat-trick against Marine in the FA Cup, he only scored once in nine league outings and was sent back to Portugal the following summer.

The now Fulham ace wasn’t the only underwhelming attacker signed by Mourinho in 2020, as another is now outscoring and performing Tel away from the club this season.

The former Spurs dud outperforming Tel

With Mourinho not actually making all that many signings while in the Spurs hot seat, it’ll come as no surprise that the attacker in question is Steven Bergwijn.

The Dutchman joined the North Londoners for about £27m in January 2020, but aside from completing one of the Premier League’s best comebacks, the skilful winger joined Ajax just two years later for around £26m with eight goals and nine assists to his name in 83 appearances.

Over the next two and a bit years, the “big-game monster,” as dubbed by journalist John Cross, would score 29 goals and provide 11 assists in 80 games for the Amsterdam outfit before making a surprise move to Al-Ittihad in the Saudi Pro League in September.

Since moving to the Middle East, the 27-year-old has scored ten goals and provided six assists in 23 appearances this season.

When you add the one assist he picked up in his final four games for Ajax prior to his move, the former Lilywhtes star has averaged a goal involvement every 1.58 games this term.

In contrast, in 20 appearances for Bayern and Spurs this season, Tel has scored one goal and provided one assist, which is an average of a goal involvement every ten games.

Ultimately, it goes without saying that the 19-year-old is playing in a far harder league, but as he’s looking increasingly unable to impact games, we wonder if Spurs wish they had someone like Bergwijn on the bench just for the next couple of months.

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