Under the reign of Ange Postecoglou, Tottenham Hotspur have developed into a side that has the potential to achieve immense success on the field.
James Maddison and Micky van de Ven are two examples of players brought in this summer who fit the Australian’s approach perfectly and have been instant successes, the former notably scoring three goals and providing eight assists in just 18 outings this term.
However, that hasn’t always been the case at Spurs, with plenty of players signing for a hefty fee and then failing to live up to their price tag.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at an individual who showed so much promise in the early days of their career but never fulfilled their potential while playing for the Lilywhites.
What Spurs paid for Erik Lamela
During the 2012/13 season, Erik Lamela was one of the most promising talents in Italy, having starred in the Serie A for Roma with 15 goals and five assists in 33 appearances.
That incredible campaign made Spurs see the Argentine as the perfect replacement for Tottenham icon Gareth Bale, who left that summer for Real Madrid in an £85.2m world record fee.
The Welsh legend had provided 40 goal contributions over 44 matches in his final season at Tottenham, and given that Lamela had shown the ability to both score and create, he was supposed to take the reigns off Bale.
The Spurs ace who went from outscoring Bale to the "flop of the season"
This Tottenham dud is at the epicentre of a chequered transfer history.