Our beloved Tottenham’s season is finally in full swing after a painfully long, football-less Summer. The return of Tottenham also means the return of unbridled joy, last second winners, and the lifeblood of all Spurs supporters– the crippling disappointments!
That being said, I’m as excited as anyone for this new season, and after just four short weeks, we have already had a fair amount of drama circling our camp. Amidst the Eriksen saga, the Vertonghen/Poch dispute, and Serge Aurier just being himself, I realized how much I love our current squad at the moment. From Sonny’s radiant smile to the infamous Lamela running ball roll, just thinking about losing any of our players to other teams makes me upset.
However, all Spurs fans know it has not always been like this. (*cough*-Adebayor-*cough*)
This weekly post will be about former “eccentric” Spurs players and where they ended up. So the next time you wake up in a cold sweat thinking about where Vlad Chiriches is now, just know that this resource will be here.
Speaking of our favorite Romanian defender, he will be the subject of this week’s profile:
Oh Vlad…
Vlad, Vlad, Vlad… Where to begin?
Vlad was one of the last players brought in during the Summer of 2013. We just came off of a 5th place finish, one point behind Woolwich who obviously finished 4th.
Gareth Bale was sold and Daniel Levy had oodles of cash burning a hole in his pocket for once. Vlad was one of the seven new acquisitions brought in that window. (Christian Eriksen and Erik Lamela are the only two from that group that remain Hotspurs.)
Andre Villas Boas identified our defense as a weakness and brought in the Romanian to provide a different option to the Vertonghen/Dawson/Kaboul partnership.
He made 24 appearances for Tottenham that season, including stellar performances in our 5-1 defeat to Manchester City and our 2-0 defeat to West Ham. To be fair to Vlad, in the West Ham game he was subbed on for Harry Kane in the 28th minute after team captain, Younes Kaboul, picked up his second red card of the season. Man, that was a weird sentence to write.
Unfortunately, most Spurs fans will remember Vlad for his comments about using Tottenham as a stepping stone to get a big money move to Chelsea or United.
Vlad did have some genuinely good performances for Napoli after he moved to the Italian club on a free transfer back in 2015. He partnered alongside the giant defender Koulibaly for a string of games in 2016, but eventually fell out of favor due to reoccurring injuries. He left Napoli last week on transfer deadline day and finally got his dream move after all…
That’s right! Vlad joined Sassuolo on a loan with an option to buy! Good for you Vlad, glad we could help you on your way to your dream move.
In the end, football is about memories. I don’t know about you, but I’ll always remember the 35 yard screamer he scored against Fulham and that’s all that matters to me. What kind of memories does Vlad Chiriches bring back to you?
Let me know @Spursy_Spurs on Twitter.
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