5 times Tottenham Hotspur missed out on transfer targets

#4: Dimitri Payet

Dimitri Payet could've played under Harry Redknapp at Spurs

Currently plying his trade back in France with Marseille, Dimitri Payet rose to fame after a blistering 2015/16 season at West Ham that he followed with some equally brilliant performances for France during Euro 2016. But incredibly, had things gone slightly differently, the French maverick could’ve been a Tottenham player some 7 years before moving to West Ham – back in 2009 when he was just 21 years old.

In 2016 it was reported that Damien Comolli, who acted as Tottenham’s Director of Football from 2005 to 2008 – spanning the reigns of Martin Jol and Juande Ramos – had come close to signing Payet for Spurs, but ended up leaving the club before the move could be completed.

According to Comolli, he’d been contacted by French side St. Etienne in the summer of 2007, just as they were completing a £4m move to sign Payet from Nantes. The idea was apparently that St. Etienne would sell Payet to Spurs two seasons later for £10m – essentially when they felt he’d be Premier League-ready – but when Comolli was fired in the autumn of 2008, the idea went by-the-by.

In this case, it wasn’t really Tottenham’s fault that they missed out on such a great talent – Comolli had come under criticism for many of his signings and his dismissal seemed overdue at the time – but it certainly would’ve been fun for Spurs fans to see the maverick talents of Payet under Harry Redknapp in 2009/10!