It wasn’t long ago we were fully expecting Steve Bruce to pursue a permanent deal for Danny Rose – and moves for fellow loanees Nabil Bentaleb and Valentino Lazaro hadn’t been rule out either.
In the end, we paid £15m to sign Norwich City left-back Jamal Lewis instead of Rose, brought in Jeff Hendrick on a free – instead of activating a £9m clause for Bentaleb – and opted for Ryan Fraser, not Inter Milan wide man Valentino Lazaro.
A few months on from pretty uninspiring spells at St James’ Park, it would be an understatement to say our former loan trio haven’t had the best of times!
Starting with Danny Rose, he was in talks to join Serie A side Genoa at one stage this summer but that fell through, while deadline day interest from Porto also came to nothing.
As a result, he’s sat in Spurs’ reserves, is totally out of favour with Jose Mourinho and appears to be waiting for his contract to run down at Spurs unless a last-minute escape route emerges.
Middlesbrough had also been linked with ambitious loan bid, but that didn’t happen before the EFL’s deadline last Friday.
To make matters even worse, he’s now been left out in the cold for the first half of Spurs’ season, with Jose Mourinho excluding him from his official 25-man squad.
Then to Nabil Bentaleb – a player who made history for all the wrong reasons on his return to Schalke.
Former Huddersfield boss David Wagner gave him a second chance, but his first game back was a 8-0 defeat at Bayern Munich. The biggest defeat ever on the opening day of a Bundesliga season!
He then played the full 90 in their next game, however that was another heavy defeat, this time to Werder Bremen – and it got Wagner sacked.
New boss Manuel Baum selected Bentaleb in his debut game against RB Leipzig, but that was a 4-0 defeat and there was talk of the Algerian leaving on deadline day – suggesting he may not be in the manager’s long-term plans.
Last but not least, Valentino Lazaro.
He sealed a loan move (which includes an option to buy) to Borussia Monchengladbach back in August, a very decent deal for him given they finished 4th in the Bundesliga for 2019/20 and have qualified for the Champions League as a result.
That said, he got injured in his first training game for the club and has been sidelined ever since, missing the first five games of their new season.
I’m pretty confident he’ll go on to have a strong season for them, as I believe he’s the most talented of the three, however it’s hardly been an ideal start for him – and has also seen him sit out of Austria’s crucial UEFA Nations League games over the recent international break too.
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Have you a spell check function on your tablet
Munich and Borussia might have popped up
It gives a bit more kudos to your musings if it’s written with a bit more care
Just saying ynah
Jeff douglas(Quote)