WTF was that? When Spurs 'sold Elvis but bought the Beatles' 🤦‍♂️ | OneFootball

It was BBC pundit Garth Crooks who delivered the immortal phrase, one that seemed to make sense at the time but with hindsight looks like one of the most misplaced predictions ever.

Gareth Bale, after his stunning individual season in 2012/13, had been sold to Real Madrid for a record €100m.

His presence was undoubtedly going to leave a Player of the Year-shaped hole in Tottenham’s starting XI.

But chairman Daniel Levy had a plan.

Use the Bale millions to rebuild the spine of the team and launch an assault on the Premier League under coach Andre Villas-Boas.

As Crooks said that summer: “Tottenham have sold Elvis but bought The Beatles”.

As it turns out, those signings were less Paul, John, George and Ringo and more Zippy, Bungle, George and Geoffrey.

Seven players made the switch to north London: Erik Lamela, Roberto Soldado, Paulinho, Christian Eriksen, Etienne Capoue, Vlad Chiriches and Nacer Chadli.

Fast forward seven years and only one is still there – Lamela.

During that time only Eriksen and the Argentine can be considered anything close to a success.

Paulinho was supposed to anchor the midfield and flopped horribly, Soldado scored just seven times in the Premier League, Chadli burned brightly for six months and then saw his flame extinguished.

Capoue was never cut out for the top six and eventually joined Watford while Chiriches looked like he was never cut out for football, period.

Spurs would go on to finish the 2013/14 campaign in sixth place, get knocked out of the FA Cup at the first possible opportunity and only reach the last 16 of the Europa League under King of Banter Tim Sherwood.

It wouldn’t be until Mauricio Pochettino’s arrival the next year that Tottenham would finally have Elvis back in the building.