So more business at White Hart Lane, this time it’s a player departing with Brazilian International Paulinho moving to Evergrande Guangzhou for a fee of £10m. The money recouped means a £7m loss on Tottenham’s original outlay back in 2013.
The move to China will consign Paulinho to the “flop” department and just another of a long line of Brazilians who didn’t cut the mustard in English Football. For Tottenham it also means it’s the first of the “Bale Money” players to leave the club and hopefully it won’t be the last.
For Paulinho itself it seems like an easy move for him as he will be playing in nowhere near a competitive league than the Premier League, will have his wages doubled and also will get to link up with former Brazil Manager Luis Felipe Scolari. So for him it may seem like a no brainer but it also to me says this player lacks ambition.
Maybe for all parties it was better to ship him on and cut Tottenham’s losses. Now hopefully Capoue, Chiriches and Soldado will follow in due course but if they do depart then again I expect they will all be sold at somewhat of a loss. This just magnifies how wasteful Tottenham were with the money received after Gareth Bale moved to Real Madrid.
Although Paulinho won’t be sorely missed it does make Tottenham’s Centre Midfield department even lighter at the moment so they will certainly need to reinvest that £10m into getting another player to join the Midfield ranks during the summer and already join Kevin Wimmer and Kieran Trippier in joining the club. But personally Paulinho must be thinking how as a highly rated Brazilian International did he lose a first team position to two academy players, then again with his move to Asia and even bigger wages does he even care?
Another name who could be (hopefully) out of the door is Emmanuel Adebayor. The Togo International has been linked with being used a makeweight in the possible bid for Christian Benteke to come to White Hart Lane. If this was to happen then it would mean Adebayor linking up with Tim Sherwood again. Personally I think this would be a great move for Spurs and could also placate Aston Villa as they would be getting a replacement straight away, the only problem is that part exchange deals (obviously there would be a cash payment – we’re not talking like for like here) rarely seem to get off the ground, so this certain bit of transfer talk is still in first gear for now. But if it was up to me I would be dropping off Adebayor in Birmingham around now and not giving him the coach ticket home.