Gareth Bale was arguably one of the best players to grace the lilywhite shirt of Tottenham Hotspur.
So when he left, fans were devastated. The club lost one of the best players in the squad.
Despite the sadness around his departure, the club received a substantial fee from Real Madrid. Madrid paid £85million (BBC) for the star Welshman – a record outgoing transfer for Spurs.
It was clear that Spurs would need to splash their newfound cash on a replacement. It was always going to be difficult replacing a player of Bale’s quality. The club used the money to fund the transfers of seven players in the following years.
They would become known as The Bale Seven.
Out of the seven that were purchased, just two remain. Christian Eriksen and Erik Lamela are the only two that have continued their tenure at the club, whilst for the others their career in north London didn’t eventuate to the same extent.
We look at the other five players that were purchased with the Bale money, and see where they are now.
Paulinho
Paulinho’s time at Tottenham can be assessed as both a success and a failure. Whilst he may not have lived up to the initial hype, he did prove to be an important player in the squad during his time at the club.
He was purchased for just under £17million (BBC) and eventually sold for just £9.9million to Guangzhou Evergrande (Guardian).
Where is he now?
After two seasons at Guangzhou Evergrande, Paulinho was purchased by Barcelona for 40m Euros – an extraordinary fee considering Spurs sold him for just 10m.
After just one season, however, he was loaned back to Guangzhou Evergrande, which became a permanent transfer in January 2019.
Guangzhou Evergrande purchased Paulinho back for 42million Euros (Marca).
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