Spurs reportedly wanted Sandro Ramirez for two years before he joined Premier League rivals Everton in the summer of 2017.
Sandro Ramirez looked a man transformed on Saturday.
The Everton loanee was a constant threat as Real Valladolid consigned Espanyol to their fourth straight home defeat in La Liga, cutting in from the left to wreak havoc on his favoured right foot. But, for all his best efforts, those driving runs and that intelligent movement, there was still no goal.
It’s now 52 games since Sandro hit the back of the net. In fact, he’s scored just once in his last 65 matches in all competitions and that came in a humiliating 5-1 home defeat to Atalanta in the Europa League during David Unsworth’s ill-fated spell as Everton’s caretaker manager. He scored a grand total of none during previous loan spells at Sociedad and Sevilla.
That brilliant 2016/17 season at Malaga, when the one-time Barcelona starlet plundered 14 La Liga goals with many of them long-range rockets, feels like light years away.
And it’s fair to say that, if he could roll back the clock, Sandro would surely have second thoughts about joining Everton in that £5.1 million deal in the summer of 2017 (Independent).
At the time, that looked like a real bargain and Tottenham Hotspur were left kicking themselves. After all, Spurs had wanted Sandro for at least two years before he arrived at Goodison Park.
Sport claimed in 2015 that a move to North London fell through because Tottenham refused to let Barcelona include a buy-back clause in the deal. Then, just weeks before a move to Everton was wrapped up, Sport stated that Sandro had another offer on the table from Mauricio Pochettino’s side.
Young, skilful and with the ability to play anywhere across the frontline, the-then Spain U21 star looked like the archetypal Pochettino signing. But with the goals drying up and with his reputation in tatters, Daniel Levy is hardly waking up in cold sweats wondering what might have been.
He’s Everton’s problem now.
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