Left for £0: Levy has already offloaded Spurs' original Mathys Tel

After a slight improvement in form last month, Tottenham Hotspur have seemingly returned to disappointing normality over the last week or so.

Ange Postecoglou’s side fell to a 1-0 defeat to the lacklustre Manchester City in the Premier League last week and then lost to AZ Alkmaar by the same scoreline last night.

It was an underwhelming performance from the entire team, but one of the most disappointing individual displays came from Mathys Tel.

The young Frenchman has struggled to live up to the hype generated when he joined the club on loan last month, and there is a chance he could follow in the footsteps of a former Spurs youngster who is now playing in the Championship.

Why Spurs signed Tel

On transfer deadline day last month, Spurs confirmed that they had completed the signing of Tel on a short-term loan with an option to buy at £45m.

Now, that’s a lot of money for a player who had provided just a single assist in 14 appearances for Bayern in the first half of the season, but last year, in just 1406 minutes of first-team action, he scored ten goals and provided six assists.

However, while it’s clear the 19-year-old ace has sky-high potential, he has not shown that with Tottenham so far.

For example, in six appearances, five of which have been starts, the Sarcelles-born dynamo has scored just one goal, which came in the FA Cup defeat to Aston Villa.

Worse still, Postecoglou was so unimpressed with his performance last night that he actually hooked the forward at half-time.

In short, Tel has to seriously step up in the coming weeks, or he could be sent back to Bayern and then shipped off elsewhere, potentially to a lower league, like one of Spurs’ former academy gems who looked to be a star in the making at one point.

Spurs’ original Tel

Tottenham have had plenty of sensational talents come out of their academy over the years, such as Harry Kane over ten years ago or Mikey Moore this year.

However, one of the most exciting academy products, who only ever made one appearance for the first team before moving to Vitória Guimarães on a free, is Marcus Edwards.

Like Tel today, the English winger was once seen as one of Europe’s most exciting talents and someone who’d eventually go on to have a stellar career at the very top of the game.

For example, former Lilywhites boss Mauricio Pochettino went as far as to compare him to Lionel Messi, saying: “His qualities, it’s only looks, his body and the way that he plays, remember a little bit from the beginning of Messi.”

While such a comparison has since been made to look absurd, there was a brief period in which it looked as if the “electric” phenom, as dubbed by content creator Jack Collins, would at least become an elite player.

In the 22/23 campaign, his first full season with Sporting CP, the Enfield-born gem scored 12 goals and provided 14 assists in just 51 appearances, which worked out to an average of a goal involvement every 1.96 games.

However, he failed to hit that sort of form in the following two and a half seasons and finally left the Portuguese giants to join Burnley in the winter window this year.

Now, joining Scott Parker’s promotion-chasing side is still a great move in the grand scheme of things, but it wasn’t long ago that the 26-year-old was being compared to the greatest player of all time and being linked with moves back to Tottenham.

Ultimately, Edwards is still a decent player who will likely have a good career, but he’ll also probably never live up to the expectations people had of him, which is what could happen to Tel if he does not start performing this season.

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