After finishing in fifth place last season, there was a hope from fans that Tottenham Hotspur would be able to go kick on this year, a hope that remains very much unrealised.
Instead of fighting for a Champions League place, Ange Postecoglou’s side sit in the bottom half of the Premier League table with more losses than wins, and a big reason for that is their incredible bad luck with injuries.
The North Londoners have missed practically their entire backline for much of the campaign and are now without top scorer Brennan Johnson and record-signing Dominic Solanke.
The English forward has been brilliant for the Lilywhites this season, but interestingly, he’s being outscored by another former Premier League superstar who almost signed for Tottenham over ten years ago.
Spurs' best attackers in 2024/25
While defence has undoubtedly been a major problem for Spurs this season, largely thanks to injuries, the team have still been a relatively potent attacking force for much of the campaign, as demonstrated by their 48 league goals, a tally only bettered by Arsenal and Liverpool.
The most prolific player for Ange this year has been Johnson, who, after a slow start to the campaign that saw him deactivate his Instagram account due to fan abuse, has racked up a stellar haul of 12 goals and three assists in 32 appearances, only 22 of which have been starts.
Close behind the Welshman is the club’s £65m man, Solanke, who, in his first campaign for the North Londoners, has already scored 11 goals and provided six assists in just 33 appearances, which comes out to an average of a goal involvement every 1.94 games.
The only other player in the squad to have reached double figures for goals this term is Son Heung-min, who has found the back of the net on ten occasions and provided eight assists, for good measure, all in just 33 games.
The top five is rounded out by Dejan Kulusevski, who has produced 19 goal involvements in 39 games, and James Maddison, who has managed to rack up nine goals and six assists in his 31 appearances thus far, of which only 21 have been starts.
Johnson
32
22
12
3
Solanke
29
24
11
6
Son
33
29
10
8
Kulusevski
39
29
9
10
Maddison
31
21
9
6
In all, despite their lacklustre form this season, Spurs do have several incredibly talented attackers to choose from when all fit. However, for all his hard work, Solanke is being outscored by a former Premier League star who almost signed for the club in the past.
One that got away
The free-scoring forward Spurs almost signed
As with practically every major club, there are always countless examples of players they could have signed in the past who go on to great things down the line.
However, in this instance, Spurs had to watch Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang take the Premier League by storm and win an FA Cup with Arsenal years after they passed up on the chance to bring him to the white side of North London.
The “tremendous” Gabonese international, as dubbed by Arsene Wenger, was shown around the club in 2012 but was never contacted afterwards.
According to former Spurs player Ronny Rosenthal, who was working with the striker at the time, then-manager André Villas-Boas made the decision not to pursue him.
In the decade and a bit since, the Laval-born superstar has gone on to score 141 goals in 213 games for Dortmund, 92 goals in 163 games for the Gunners, where he picked up a Premier League Golden Boot and FA Cup, 13 goals in 24 games for Barcelona, three goals in 21 games for Chelsea, 30 goals in 51 games for Marseille and now 12 goals in 20 games for AL-Qadsiah in Saudi Arabia.
Dortmund
213
141
34
Arsenal
163
92
20
Saint-Etienne
97
41
25
Marseille
51
30
11
Dijon
39
10
2
Barcelona
24
13
1
LOSC Lille
24
2
2
AS Monaco
23
2
3
Chelsea
21
3
1
Al-Qadsiah
20
12
2
That means the “unreal” goal machine, as dubbed by journalist Jonas Adnan Giæver, is currently outscoring Solanke at the ripe old age of 35, and while it is undoubtedly a lower standard than in England, you only need to look at his sensational tally in France last season to see that he could still get the job done in a top five league.
Ultimately, Spurs won’t be losing any sleep over not signing Aubameyang back in 2012, especially not when a certain Harry Kane would soon emerge.
That said, it’s interesting to imagine what it would have been like to see him in the white half of North London and not the red.
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