Cost £0, sold for more than Eriksen: Tottenham Hotspur hit the jackpot on flop now worth just £3m

This player is now worth just £3m and has had disciplinary issues abroad.

Central midfield is the hub of a football team, central – literally and figuratively – to a side’s chances of success, controlling matches, dominating them.

This is the case for almost every team but especially so for Tottenham Hotspur, with the high-energy, hard-running brand of football implemented following Ange Postecoglou’s appointment last summer transforming the mood and mentality.

The Australian was tasked with rebuilding an outfit that had suffered its lowest Premier League finish in 15 years, lost its talisman in club record scorer Harry Kane and its identity in the managerial misfire that saw Antonio Conte’s tenure come to a screeching halt.

Postecoglou is threading together a structured and exciting squad that may well surpass that of his predecessors and the locus of these improvements lies with the shrewd and sharp recruitment that has lifted Tottenham’s team and strengthened it with influential players such as Micky van de Ven, James Maddison, Brennan Johnson.

One area that’s been largely untouched thus far is central midfield, albeit with 21-year-old Pape Sarr fast-rising as one of the biggest talents in English football and Maddison acquired to sit in the No. 10 spot.

Bolstering the likes of Yves Bissouma and Rodrigo Bentancur, it’s shaping up to be quite the formidable engine room, with up-and-comers like Sarr proving to hold far greater quality than the likes of Oliver Skipp, Harry Winks and… Nabil Bentaleb.

Nabil Bentaleb’s time at Spurs

Bentaleb starred in the Tottenham Hotspur Academy and made 27 appearances for the U21s in a standout midfield role before making his Premier League debut under Tim Sherwood in the 2013/14 season, against Southampton in a 3-2 victory. He started 11 games across the latter half of the campaign, a testament to the regard Sherwood held for the dynamic midfielder.

And so the now-29-year-old established himself as something of a first-team regular and retained this position at the start of Mauricio Pochettino’s reign, featuring 35 times in all competitions throughout the 2014/15 campaign.

He fell out of favour as the Lilywhites improved under their Argentine manager, however, and after heading out on loan with Schalke for the 2016/17 campaign, the German side were enamoured with his qualities and forged ahead with a permanent deal.

With Bentaleb playing such a bit-part role in this third full season as a pro, it was only natural that he would be headed for the exit.

Now, as per FBref, Bentaleb ranks among the top 19% of central midfielders across Europe’s top five leagues over the past year for passes attempted, the top 16% for successful take-ons, the top 6% for interceptions and the top 11% for blocks per 90.

With Chelsea’s Premier League record signing Moises Caicedo considered Bentaleb’s most comparable player, it’s clear to see that he offers many attributes that would appear suited for life in the English top-flight – indeed he has chalked up 58 Premier League appearances, and four assists.

He’s an eager distributor and an active defensive outlet in the centre of the park, holding the team together and earning praise as “the best footballer in the whole team” by former Schalke sporting director Christian Heidel in the past, with the German executive also claiming that the French-born star has a skill set that allows him to “do things on the pitch that many can’t.”

But Tottenham had a flourishing centre consisting of Mousa Dembele, Dele Alli, Victor Wanyama and Christian Eriksen and Bentaleb simply couldn’t receive assurances via-a-vis match action, and when Bundesliga club Schalke came calling with a €22.5m (£19m) package for his services, it was something of a no-brainer.

In fact, the fee received for Bentaleb’s signature actually surpasses the £16m figure Inter Milan paid for Eriksen in January 2022, with the Dane nearing the end of his contract but leaving Spurs as one of the club’s greatest modern midfielders, posting 69 goals and 90 assists across 305 outings.

It was a very good deal in hindsight, with Bentaleb’s career punctuated with inconsistency and various issues that would surely have precluded his chances of building a top-class career at Tottenham.

Nabil Bentaleb’s market valuation in 2024

The £16k-per-week ace joined his boyhood club Lille in the summer after leaving as a ten-year-old, having spent the past two campaigns with fellow Ligue 1 outfit Angers.

According to Football Transfers’ player valuation model, Bentaleb is currently worth just £3m, and while he’s performing with comparative success in France, he’s certainly suffered quite the depreciation.

He did return to the Premier League in 2019/20 on loan at Newcastle but started just eight league matches after starting his short-term deal in January, completing 86% of his passes and 80% of his dribbles but winning only 48% of his ground duels, as per Sofascore.

This season, to illustrate the point, Bissouma has completed 92% of his passes in the Premier League and won 61% of his ground duels.

Pensively reflecting on his decision to leave the club, Bentaleb said it was his principally his choice in 2023: “No, it was me. It was me. Like I’ve already said, I was young, and stupid. I rushed, I did everything to force an exit when they were really counting on me at Tottenham, but when I had an idea in mind, I wanted to see it through. That made me leave. It did help me to leave, but, if you ask me now, looking back, I would have stayed.”

How easy it is to hark back. But unfortunately for Bentaleb, his career since has not exactly proved the decision to ship him on incorrect, and Tottenham most certainly will not rue collecting a sizeable sum for a player now worth just £3m before his 30th birthday.