Johan Lange told Tottenham Hotspur fans that the reason for transfer inactivity in the winter when Spurs obviously needed reinforcements was to avoid panic buys, but, well, not only are Spurs panicking now that they are in a relegation fight, but they also DID make a major panic buy in center midfielder Conor Gallagher.
Not only did Spurs sign a player who is clearly not good enough to start for them and has already fallen off the pecking order under Igor Tudor, but they overpaid by 10 million euros in order to sign him ahead of Aston Villa after the injury to Rodrigo Bentancur - a player whose style is not even replaced by Gallagher's. And by the way, Benta is about to come back from injury, in addition to the fact that Lucas Bergvall has already returned as a much better version of what Gallagher allegedly offers.
The 40 million euro transfer fee is a problem, but the wages to Gallagher, breaking the club's wage structure for a backup level player, is the much bigger problem. And after Daniel Levy so delicately, to the point of holding back the team in the transfer market from competing with the other Big Six clubs, set a strict wage structure, Vinai Venkatesham and Johan Lange have corrupted it in the worst possible way.
Conor Gallagher's wages will have huge consequences
A recent article from The Athletic's Daniel Taylor, Oliver Kay, Gregg Evans, and Steve Madeley absolutely went IN on Tottenham Hotspur and is well, well worth the read for a deconstruction of the unbridled competence within. But the most concerning nugget in the piece may have been regarding the consequences of the Conor Gallagher contrat.
The Athletic reveals a quote from an agent who stated that if Gallagher is now the biggest earner at Tottenham, all the other stars who are better than Gallagher and want new contracts, like Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero, are going to be looking at that and feeling a bit disrespected that he is now the one making all that money.
They, in turn, are going to want more, and it is going to be even more difficult, if not impossible, for Tottenham to keep ahold of those players. Now, the wage structure needed to be broken in order for Spurs to compete, yes, but to break it by giving Conor freaking Gallagher 200,000 pounds per week is malpractice of the highest order. And the true ripple effects of this bizarre decision will be felt very soon once the storm is unleashed this summer.