Tottenham spent the summer trying to sign a striker to compete with Harry Kane and had Danny Ings, Loren Moron, Wout Weghorst, Callum Wilson, Troy Deeney, Vedat Muriqi, Patrik Schick, Arkadiusz Milik, Robin Quaison, Rhian Brewster, Habib Diallo, Josh King, Ollie Watkins, Alexander Sørloth, Bas Dost and Christian Benteke on their radar.
Before eventually signing Carlos Vinicius on a season-long loan, however, we were eyeing Willian Jose in September but failed to agree a deal with Real Sociedad to bring him to North London. We also tried in January before eventually signing Steven Bergwijn. Mundo Deportivo have explained why our pursuit failed, courtesy of Ángel López’s report on Thursday.
Willian Jose rebuffed our approach
We weren’t blessed with much of a transfer kitty for new arrivals this summer and placed a number of existing players on the transfer list to generate funds.
We brought in Joe Hart on a free transfer, signed Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg for a £3m net spend as Kyle Walker-Peters was sold for £12m, signed Matt Doherty for £15m while offering Juan Foyth to Villarreal for the same amount weeks later, signed Gareth Bale on loan and only agreed to pay 40% of his wages, signed Sergio Reguilon for £27m with the money made last season from our Champions League run and signed Vinicius on loan.
Mundo Deportivo say we tried to sign Jose on loan, but he wanted a permanent move away from Sociedad and rejected our approach as a result. Sevilla, Olympique Marseille and West Bromwich Albion were also keen on the 28-year-old but were unwilling to sign him permanently, so he stayed at the Anoeta Stadium.
This season, Jose has only made one appearance from a possible five, amassing 23 minutes of playing time from a possible 450 after testing positive for the Coronavirus.
We’re better off with Vinicius
I believe we got the better end of the stick with Vinicius. The 25-year-old has scored 24 goals and made 13 assists in 49 games (1 goal/assist per 1.3 games) for Benfica while Jose has only managed 56 goals and 14 assists in 150 games (1 goal/assist per 2.1 games) for La Real.
In other news, here’s the truth about Tottenham’s alleged attempt to re-sign Christian Eriksen