Signed by Conte, now worth just £4m: Spurs star has been even worse than Bryan Gil at N17
Bryan Gil in a Tottenham match.
Ahh, just when it seemed like Ange Postecoglou’s team was making progress, Gary O’Neil painted north London in Old Gold, knocking Tottenham Hotspur back out of the top four.
While the season hinted at development, it also carried the risk of bringing back the same old inconsistency that has dogged Spurs in previous years.
Heung-min Although Pedro Porro and Destiny Udogie have lately sustained injuries, Son, Yves Bissouma, and Pape Matar Sarr have returned from international competitions, and this team’s spark and fluidity should now be beginning to come together into a cohesive system.
Furthermore, Wolverhampton Wanderers’ shock victory at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has only given Aston Villa a two-point advantage in fourth place, so Postecoglou will be confident that his team can string together a string of wins, especially with the new additions leading the charge.
James Maddison, Micky van de Ven, Gugliemo Vicario, and Brennan Johnson are among the new players that are anticipated to maintain key positions in a Tottenham side that will be contending for title in the Champions League in the future.
In order to ensure that transactions for flops like Djed Spence don’t happen again, chairman Daniel Levy must continue to use this novel strategy in the market.
Spurs’ payment for Djed Spence
Spurs finalized the £20 million acquisition of Spence from Middlesbrough in July 2022. The athletic right-back was a highly sought-after acquisition after a stellar loan stint at Nottingham Forest.
Following his brief stay at the City Ground, where he made 50 appearances in all competitions, scoring three goals and dishing out five assists to help the Tricky Trees compete for promotion, Brian Laws had nothing but praise for the budding talent.
“He has been the standout player in the Forest side and we are talking about a full-back,” the former Forest great said. It’s rare for full-backs to make headlines. He takes them handful by handful. He makes a difference in every single game.
“He is a serious danger because of his forward force, rapid speed, wealth of skills, ability to step over, drop his shoulder, and ability to go inside or outside. There’s no denying his one-on-one defense. He is powerful in the air and does a respectable job on the back post. Nothing that I have seen could be considered a weakness.
Warm acclaim, if not entirely undeserved. Spence seemed to be the player who would lead Tottenham at right-back in the next years, having put up several strong displays down the right side.
Even though £20 million was a significant amount, there was always a chance that things may go wrong, especially because the Spurs manager at the time, Antonio Conte, had said that Levy and company had pushed for an agreement before he approved the purchase.
Djed Spence’s career at Spurs
Spence, who is now 23 years old, was loaned to Serie A team Genoa for the 2023–2024 season after failing to make an impression at Tottenham.
The £25k-per-week wizard, who was once praised by pundit Ian Wright for his “swashbuckling” style, only made six appearances for the Lilywhites before finishing a loan move to Rennes on January deadline day of last year. Although Postecoglou saw some promising moments in France, where he completed 89% of his passes and was successful with 63% of his dribbles and 61% of his duels, according to Sofascore, he was not persuaded.
To be honest, Conte didn’t really give the full-back much of an opportunity and he didn’t play in the Premier League for more than three minutes, which highlighted the fact that the Italian manager wasn’t happy with the acquisition.
He may be an even worse acquisition than Bryan Gil, who is generally seen as a flop at the club after joining for £21 million from Sevilla in 2021, given that Erik Lamela is also leaving. However, he has nothing good to show from his time at Tottenham.
Although Gil, a 23-year-old, has not accomplished much this season, at least he has contributed to Postecoglou’s plans by earning 11 displays and shown flashes of quickness.
Spence’s loan at Leeds United was terminated last month due to injury, and he has since relocated to Italy. Spence has been plagued by injuries this season once again. He has been a more useless acquisition than Gil, as seen by the fact that he is constantly being loaned out.
Naturally, there will be hope that Spence can turn things around, but it doesn’t appear like he will replace Porro in the Spurs starting lineup anytime soon. Additionally, after being benched for Genoa’s last two league games, there will be increased worries that he will have to deal with more months of frustration.
The market valuation of Djed Spence as of 2024
At a period in his career when his trajectory should only be upward, Spence’s current worth, based on the valuation methodology of CIES Football Observatory, is merely £4 million. This represents a depreciation of £16 million in less than two years.
Although this 80% decline in value is not the last nail in the coffin that might dash his prospects of success, he will need to address his form and fitness concerns before the number begins to increase once again.
Djed Spence: Essential Features
Spence has a lot of natural talent, as the chart above demonstrates, and Tottenham was not entirely crazy to pursue him. However, Neil Warnock is credited as saying, “You could be playing for Bromley next year, or you could be in the Premier League.”
It’s doubtful that Spence will have a successful career down N17, but only time will tell whether he can step up to the plate and establish himself at the top.
Although no team will be successful in every transfer attempt, Tottenham may lessen the error by sticking with the new approach that has, in principle, been so successful under Postecoglou so far.
Just over a year ago, Levy arranged for Porro to go from Sporting Lisbon, and it’s safe to say that the Spaniard’s results have surpassed anything Spence could generate for Tottenham.
In the end, Spence’s deal hasn’t worked out, and when summer arrives, all parties involved need to be open about this reality and find a way to get Spence out of town so he may continue his career somewhere.
Read Also: I’m very angry: 23yr old Tottenham player says he’s absolutely furious with his finishing
Read Also: Guglielmo Vicario now reply Tottenham fans with 2 emotional words after loss
Read Also: Ange call backfires as £30M Tottenham star blasted Really Bad display today
Read Also: Does not know anything: Pundit criticises Tottenham man after nightmare mistake in loss