Tottenham Hotspur couldn’t sign current Napoli star during Jose Mourinho’s time

Tottenham Hotspur missed out on signing Napoli centre-back Kim Min-jae during the time they were managed by Jose Mourinho, as per the Express.

The player would have apparently cost around 10million Pounds during that time. He was plying his trade in China with Beijing Guoan at the time and eventually ended up joining Fenerbahce in the summer of 2021.

The Portuguese tactician was sacked in April 2021, so it is fair to think that he wanted Kim at Spurs in the transfer windows that preceded his sacking. Speaking earlier this season, Mourinho admitted:

“I can tell you a story about one of their players. I spoke to him on FaceTime and wanted to buy him at Tottenham, but Tottenham didn’t help me. The player cost ten million, Tottenham offered five. A deal could be done for seven or eight, but at that time Tottenham couldn’t spend money.”

“I spoke to the lad two or three times via FaceTime, he really wanted to come, but he couldn’t come. And now he’s that ‘rubbish’ defender who plays there, Kim.”

There is no way of knowing if a player will be a massive hit or a flop at a club. Spurs couldn’t have envisaged that the South Korea international, nicknamed ‘the Monster’ due to his imposing physique and build, would be this good.

Then again, if the recommendation came from Mourinho himself, then it was very foolish of us to not back him. Why bring a superstar manager like Jose if we didn’t plan to get him the players he wanted in his squad?

We would surely be regretting that decision now. He moved to SSC Napoli last summer and has been excellent since then. His price tag could have reached around 50million Pounds due to his performances in Italy and for South Korea at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

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This is surely too expensive for us especially considering we weren’t able to pay 1/5th of that amount under Mourinho’s reign. But that doesn’t change the fact that we really, really need a world-class defender to partner Eric Dier and Cristian Romero in defence. It’s high time we make a big signing in this position.