Sold for £6.7m: Spurs must regret selling star who's outscoring Kolo Muani
da poker： Tottenham Hotspur love a deadline day signing under Daniel Levy and, well, they’ve made another one.
da premier bet： On Monday, Spurs completed the signing of striker Randal Kolo Muani, arriving on a season-long loan from Paris Saint-Germain, costing a €5m (around £4.3m) loan fee, with no option or obligation to buy included.
This certainly gives Thomas Frank plenty of choice when it comes to his centre-forward position, with Richarlison having started all four matches in that position so far, including the UEFA Super Cup, bagging a brace on the opening day of the Premier League season against Burnley.
That’s not to mention Dominic Solanke, who joined Spurs as recently as last summer for £65m, but has seen just 49 minutes of action so far this season, spread across three substitute appearances, although he remains a contender for serious minutes.
However, will Tottenham still rue selling one of the highest-scoring players in Europe since the start of last season, one that could have flourished in North London had he not moved on?
What Randal Kolo Muani will bring to Tottenham
Tottenham will become the fifth club Kolo Muani has represented in just six seasons, searching for a more permanent home.
His major breakthrough came at Nantes, scoring 12 Ligue goals in 2021/22 for the Canaries, earning a move to Eintracht Frankfurt, who snapped him up as a free agent.
Well, one season and 23 goals later, Kolo Muani joined Paris Saint-Germain in a deal worth, potentially, as much as £78m on deadline day of 2023, but this has not proved to be a shrewd investment from les Rouge-et-Bleu.
Never truly in Luis Enrique’s plans, the Frenchman scored just 11 goals in 54 PSG appearances, spending the second half of last season out on loan at Juventus, for whom he bagged a more than respectable ten goals in 22 outings, eight of which came in Serie A. He most recently scored a brace against Al Ain during the Club World Cup.
Now though, having scored goals in Ligue 1, the Bundesliga and Serie A, he’ll be looking to add the Premier League to this list, hoping to make his Tottenham debut against West Ham after the international break.
Well, perhaps Spurs would never have needed to sign Kolo Muani, had they not sold one of their best academy products of recent times.
Ex-Tottenham striker free-scoring in Europe
Having scored 17 goals in 15 appearances for the U18s, as well as nine goals in nine UEFA Youth League outings, there was plenty of excitement from within the Tottenham fan base about Troy Parrott, even before his senior debut in September 2019.
Nevertheless, despite being free-scoring at youth level, the Irishman made just four senior Spurs appearances, loaned out to Millwall, Ipswich, Milton Keynes and Preston, before exploding in the Netherlands.
During the 2023/24 season, on loan at Excelsior, Parrott scored a total of 17 Eredivisie goals, averaging a goal every 127 minutes, made all the more impressive by the fact that his team finished third-bottom, subsequently netting seven times during the play-offs, including four in the final, but this was in vain as the Rotterdam-based side were relegated, defeated 7-6 on aggregate by NAC Breda.
This though, caught the attention of bigger Dutch clubs, including AZ Alkmaar, who agreed to pay €8m (around £6.7m) to sign him permanently from Tottenham last summer.
Well, the Cheeseheads are certainly glad they made this decision, given that the Republic of Ireland international scored 20 goals last season, four of which came in the Europa League, on target against Elfsborg, Ferencváros, Galatasaray and Roma.
Well, Parrott has started this season absolutely on fire, netting ten times already, including seven in five Conference League qualifying outings, as well as a brace on the opening day of the Eredivisie season against Groningen.
The table below documents how prolific he has been since joining AZ.
Top-scorers: Europe’s top 7 leagues (24/25 & 25/26)
Players
Club(s)
Goals
Viktor Gyökeres
Sporting & Arsenal
56
Kylian Mbappé
Real Madrid
47
Harry Kane
Bayern Munich
47
Robert Lewandowski
Barcelona
42
Serhou Guirassy
Borussia Dortmund
42
Ousmane Dembélé
Paris Saint-Germain
37
Erling Braut Håland
Manchester City
37
Raphinha
Barcelona
35
Mohamed Salah
Liverpool
35
Sem Steijn
Twente & Feyennord
33
Vangelis Pavlidis
Benfica
33
Troy Parrott
AZ Alkmaar
30
All statistics courtesy of Transfermarkt
As the table documents, Parrott is keeping quite illustrious company when it comes to players who’ve scored 30 or more goals across all competitions since the start of last season, with the Irishman skyrocketing up that leaderboard following his exploits last month.
For comparison, Kolo Muani has scored 12 goals during the same timeframe.
Former Tottenham midfielder Rafael van der Vaart has certainly been impressed by Parrott’s form in the Eredivisie, labelling him a “striker who actually has everything”, impressed by his “killer instinct” in front of goal.
Thus, the Republic of Ireland international could prove to be the one that got away for Spurs fans, even if they’ll be pleased to see him thriving over in the Netherlands.