Ex-Spurs Brazilians Gomes & Paulinho Reveal Unhappiness at Tottenham as Lucas Moura Joins for £25m

Tottenham Hotspur have unveiled their deadline day signing. Brazilian winger Lucas Moura joined the club on January 31st from Paris Saint-Germain for around £23m. 

Spurs have had a number of Brazilians play for them over the last decade or so. Gilberto, Heurelho Gomes, Paulinho, and Sandro all had stints playing at White Hart Lane. But if you had to identify one thing in common with those four players, it is that their respective times playing for Spurs were unremarkable and fairly unsuccessful. 

This issue was raised by Brazilian news outlet Universo Online (UOL) who, with Lucas Moura in mind, recalled all the unsuccessful spells previous Brazilians have had at Tottenham. Could Lucas be the man to break the streak of Brazilians being unsuccessful at Spurs? 

First came left-back Gilberto, who joined Spurs in January 2008 from Hertha BSC. Gilberto lasted just over a year at Tottenham, and made just ten appearances. 

Then there was goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes who joined the club in the summer of 2008. Gomes was a four-time Eredivisie champions with PSV Eindhoven before making the switch to North London. 

In an interview with UOL Esporte, Gomes recalled his frustrations over being suddenly replaced by a 40-year-old Brad Friedel. 

"He [Friedel] was a friend of the coach, right?" said Gomes. "When I came to the locker room for a game against Manchester United, Harry [Redknapp] came to me, 20 minutes before the game started, and said 'Friedel is going to play.' I did not want to accept it and it really messed me up. I told Harry, 'I will not play for you anymore.'"

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Midfielder Sandro joined the club in 2010, but enjoyed an uninspiring spell at Tottenham. Constant knee injuries kept him from playing half of the season and he was eventually sold to Queens Park Rangers in 2014. 

Finally, there was Paulinho. The midfielder's career has been revived since his move to Barcelona, but last month he recalled his unhappiness at Spurs towards the end of his spell in an interview with UOL: "I had a good first season at Tottenham, but in the second there wasn’t a sequence of games. So when I didn’t feel happy, I waited for the season to end and then asked the president to let me go to try another challenge."

Lucas Moura has become the 22nd signing of manager Mauricio Pochettino and could be welcome addition to the squad.