On the latest episode of The View from the Lane podcast, The Athletic journalists Jack Pitt-Brooke, James Maw and Charlie Eccleshare have been discussing the latest on-goings at the North London club. This included a discussion of some of the North London club’s ‘failed signings’ in recent years, one of which included Wolves midfielder Joao Moutinho.
The north London club were ‘minutes’ away from signing the Portuguese international back in 2012, shortly after Luka Modric completed a move to Real Madrid. However, the Lilywhites were unable to complete the move ahead of the deadline, and he remained a Porto player.
This led to a discussion of the Wolves man on the latest The View from the Lane podcast, with Pitt-Brooke sharing his disappointment that the Lilywhites were unable to complete the signing of the 33-year-old back in 2012.
Here’s what the Athletic journalist said:
“For me, the one that Spurs missed the most was Joao Moutinho in 2012, just because they had literally just sold Luka Modric to Real Madrid that summer.
“They needed a creative midfielder and Moutinho was so, so good. You can see him now for Wolves, he’s an absolutely ridiculous player. I love watching him play.
“He would have been perfect, and obviously AVB knew him from Porto, he would have slotted straight into that midfield and given them that creativity, and given how AVB wanted to play with so much control and never really quite had the quality right in the middle of the pitch. Maybe it would have meant they wouldn’t have signed [Christian] Eriksen in 2013?”
TIF Thoughts…
As Pitt-Brooke goes on to suggest, perhaps the signing of Moutinho may have meant that Spurs wouldn’t have brought in Christian Eriksen from Ajax just a year later. That obviously proved to be a great signing for the North London club, with the Danish international contributing 69 goals and 89 assists for Spurs before departing to join Inter earlier this year.
Do you wish Spurs had signed Moutinho?
Yes
No
Moutinho would leave Porto for Monaco in 2013 and he spent five years with the Ligue 1 side before finally making the move to the Premier League with Wolves in 2018 (per Transfermarkt).
His impressive performances with Nuno Espirito Santo’s side in his first two seasons in the English top-flight certainly seem to suggest that the Portuguese midfielder would have been a hit had he completed his move to Spurs eight years ago. So we can understand Pitt-Brooke’s disappointment in Spurs’ failure to secure his signing.