Spurs wasted £35.8m on Mourinho dud who earned even more than Solanke

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The last five years have seen a monumental amount of change at Tottenham Hotspur.

The North Londoners have seen five permanent managers take up the job, an unsuccessful League Cup final against Manchester City and arguably their greatest-ever player leave, Harry Kane.

On top of that, each manager has been able to sign a number of their own players to varying levels of success, and it would be fair to say José Mourinho was responsible for some poor additions, including one who earned significantly more than the man of the moment, Dominic Solanke.

Spurs' 2020 summer signings

So, before we get to the player in question, let's look at a couple of other flops Mourinho signed that summer, including Irish full-back Matt Doherty.

The Dublin-born international joined the club that August from Wolverhampton Wanderers for a fee of around £14.7m and did so off the back of an impressive season with the Old Gold in which he made 50 appearances, scored seven goals and provided four assists.

However, that form did not follow him to North London, and in two and a half years in the capital, he made just 71 appearances, in which he scored three goals and provided eight assists before his contract was terminated by mutual consent.

Unfortunately for the Lilywhites, Doherty wasn't the only full-back Mourinho signed that summer, as he also oversaw the £27m capture of the Real Madrid left-back Sergio Reguilon, who was coming off of a successful loan campaign with Sevilla, during which he scored three goals and provided five assists in 38 games.

Just like with his former teammate, the Spaniard could not show the same form he had the season prior in N17, and after two disappointing years, began a series of loan spells that has seen him play for Atlético, Manchester United and, most recently, Brentford.

However, while both full-backs have to be considered flop signings, neither one was handed a wage as large as another of the special ones' disappointing signings from that summer.

Mourinho's costly signing

The player is Danish international Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, who was arguably Mourinho's most successful permanent addition from the summer of 2020, but given the competition, that's not much to shout about.

The combative midfielder joined Spurs from fellow Premier League side Southampton for a fee of around £15m, which was fairly reasonable, but what wasn't was the massive salary of £100k-per-week the club agreed to pay him.

That is £10k-per-week more than record signing Solanke is currently earning, and while he's had a slow start to life in N17, he now has a reasonable tally of five goals and two assists in 13 appearances to his name.

Now, as many fans will attest, the København-born ace wasn't a terrible player, and at times, it seemed like he was the only one who cared, but in a sport where caring counts for very little compared to ability and results, it's hard not to look at his time at the club as underwhelming.

In all, he made 184 appearances for the first team, scoring ten goals, providing 16 assists and picking up 27 yellow cards, but following a season of trying to adapt to Ange Postecoglou's style of play last year, he moved to Marseille on a season-long loan with an option to buy this summer.

In all, the 29-year-old earned around £20.8m in wages during his time at the club, which brings his total cost to around £35.8m, which can be broken down to £194k-per-appearance, £3.5m-per-goal, £2.2m-per-assist or £1.3m-per-goal-involvement.

Ultimately, Højbjerg wasn't an utter flop like some of the other players the special one signed during his tenure, but he wasn't a roaring success either, and the financial cost is just another reminder of that.