Tottenham Hotspur had a very busy deadline day.
The London club waved goodbye to Dele Alli, Tanguy Ndombele and Giovani Lo Celso on Monday, while they also signed two players.
Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancour could end up being a pair of excellent signings, but it has to be said, they’re not the most imaginative additions.
Indeed, Fabio Paratici was brought to Tottenham in the summer to revolutionise their transfer strategy and sniff out the best deals, but this January, he had a whole month to identify and chase targets only to sign two players he’s worked with before and knows very well.
Now, we’re not saying that Kulusevski and Bentancur are bad players. They could actually end up being brilliant signings, but Paratici hasn’t really had to think outside of the box when signing two players he’s previously purchased during his time at Juventus.
We’ve seen it for years in football that certain managers have their favourite players they sign time after time. Kevin Nolan and Sam Allardyce were inseparable for a period and Neil Warnock signed Paddy Kenny five times, but the master of this was undoubtedly Harry Redknapp.
To this day, people make jokes about the likes of Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch and Niko Kranjcar being signed by Redknapp on multiple occasions, and what Paratici has done here with Kulusevski and Bentancur is no different.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see Paratici leaning out of his car window on Sky Sports on deadline day telling us that the former Juventus pair are ‘terrific players’, but the premise is the same.
Paratici has been hailed as some sort of transfer guru who would transform Spurs’ recruitment business, but his January signings were rather uninventive as he went back to a well he’s already explored in the past.
Let’s just hope that Paratici can start unearthing some gems in the summer rather than just using contacts he’s already established at Juventus.
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