Neutral fans will always accuse Tottenham of wasting the Gareth Bale money all those years ago, but since then they've not done too badly in the transfer market, but that's only when they've even bothered trying to make signings.

They famously became the first club in Premier League history not to sign a player in two consecutive transfer windows, but Spurs fans will argue that why should they need to when they've quality players like Harry Kane and Harry Winks coming out of the academy.

Some of the more recent signings haven't been too bad. Lucas Moura will always be a Spurs hero for his Champions League heroics against Ajax, while the likes of Dele Alli, Toby Alderweireld and Heung-min Son will go down as bargains in years to come.

But it's not always been like that at Spurs, with many players coming through the White Hart Lane doors over the years who just have not been good enough to wear the white shirt in North London.

So we've taken a look at some of the biggest transfer flops at Spurs in the Premier League era, although we probably could've named a lot more...

Gilberto

Of the two Gilberto da Silvas to have plied their trade in north London, Tottenham certainly had the lesser one in Gilberto da Silva Melo.

The left-back turned up at White Hart Lane initially in January 2008 with some pedigree in the form of 30 Brazil caps and four strong years in Germany with Hertha Berlin but could never adapt to the pace of the Premier League and left in July 2009 a complete flop.

Sergei Rebrov

The first of a fair few strikers to feature on this list, Ukraine legend Sergei Rebrov managed a mere 16 goals in a depressing four-year spell with the Lilywhites.

What makes it worse is that Glenn Hoddle threw away a gut-busting £11m, we are talking in 2000, to bring him in based on his form with Dynamo Kyiv - although it's far from the last waste of money we're going to be looking at today.

Paolo Tramezzani 

Tottenham new signing 14/7/98 White Hart Lane  
Pic : Andrew Budd / Action Images  
Paolo Tramezzani with new team-mate Nicola Berti 
Tottenham Hotspur

Speaking of foreign players who just couldn't get to grips with English football, Paolo Tramezzani was a calamitous left-back if there ever was one.

Pictured above with fellow Italian Premier League failure Nicola Berti who's bizarrely wearing a t-shirt from the Four Seasons hotel in New York to training, Tramezzani would make just six forgettable appearances in north London.

Bobby Zamora

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Tottenham's Bobby Zamora is challenged by Palace's Danny Butterfield 
Mandatory Credit : Action Images / David Jacobs

Bobby Zamora would go onto enjoy an accomplished Premier League career with the likes of West Ham United, Fulham and Queens Park Rangers, but not before his own sorry spell at the Lane.

The Lilywhites were the team to give the future England man his big break when they signed him for Brighton & Hove Albion for a lofty £1.5m in summer 2003, however, he would only contribute the one goal for Spurs before being shipped off as part of the deal that saw the legendary Jermain Defoe arrive in N17.

Mbulelo Mabizela 

Football - Tottenham Hotspur Training - Spurs Lodge - 3/10/03 
Mbulelo Mabizela - Tottenham Hotspur during training 
Mandatory Credit:Action Images / Paul Childs

Remember him?

Prior to the 2003/2004 season, the Lilywhites decided to sign ill-disciplined centre-back Mbulelo Mabizela based on a performance he put in for Orlando Pirates against them in a friendly, it worked out just about as well as it sounded it would.

David Bentley

What did David Bentley ever really do in a Spurs shirt apart from score THAT goal against his former club in the North London derby?

Well, you could list any number of hilarious off-field pranks and incidents.

But it's what happens on the pitch that really matters and the ex-Three Lions star never really lived up to his potential or his £15m price tag at White Hart Lane before bizarrely retiring at the age of 29.

Bongani Khumalo 

Football - Kaizer Chiefs v Tottenham Hotspur 2011 Vodacom Challenge - Pre Season Friendly - Peter Mokaba Stadium, Polokwane, South Africa - 11/12 - 16/7/11 
Bongani Khumalo - Tottenham Hotspur in action  
Mandatory Credit: Action Images / Felix Dlangamandla

The picture above more or less sums up Bongani Khumalo's Tottenham career, as the former South Africa captain looked so out of his depth on loan at the likes of Preston, Doncaster and Colchester and in matches for the reserves that he somehow managed to not make a single competitive first-team appearance for the entirety of his four-and-a-half-year spell.

Spurs haven't had much luck with South Africans, have they?

Roberto Soldado

A striker who doesn't play too badly and works hard for the team but is also hampered with an uncanny inability to score goals, sounds odd, though Roberto Soldado was that very thing for Tottenham.

It will still send shivers down the spine of Spurs fans that their club flushed £26m of their Gareth Bale money down the toilet on the Spaniard for him to score 16 times in 76 games for them.

Need we say anything more?

Calum Davenport

When the Lilywhites beat others in the race to sign England U21 international defender Calum Davenport from Coventry City in 2004, they would have thought they'd unearthed a real £1.3m gem.

However, the centre-half embarked on a bizarre career that would never see him get close to the level he was once thought to have the potential to reach - he appeared a mere 20 times for Spurs.

Paulinho

After an impressive 2012/2013 campaign for Corinthians in his native Brazil, Paulinho was noticed in Europe by Andre Villas-Boas and another chunk of the Bale money would be allocated to obtain his signature.

It would take the Lilywhites two seasons to work out the Brazil man just wasn't up to Premier League standard after he was only able to register nine-goal involvements in 45 matches and he was disposed of by Mauricio Pochettino in one of the early lucrative Chinese Super League transfers.

Members of the Tottenham faithful will most recently remember him being oddly brought back to the continent in 2017 by Barcelona.

Erik Lamela

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This is a controversial one and you could even go as far as saying that some people would claim Erik Lamela belongs on the list of better Tottenham signings, if he's to be classified at all.

The reason we've included him is that, in spite of now having made the better part of 200 appearances in N17, the jury is still very much out on the Argentinian winger and for a then-club-record fee of £30m with yet more of the Bale cash, that's simply below-par after six years.

Kevin-Prince Boateng

Of the two Boateng brothers that Tottenham have been linked with over the years, they definitely signed the wrong one in the form of Kevin-Prince, and not Jerome.

Boateng did what he has become famous for throughout his career at White Hart Lane, turned up at a big club and shown a few little glimmers of brilliance in amongst a giant cloud of mediocrity culminating in an exit way before the end of his contract.

And in Spursy fashion, he even scored against them in an FA Cup semi-final defeat less than a year after they sold him on, lol.

Louis Saha

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Tottenham's Louis Saha looks dejected 
Mandatory Credit: Action Images / Carl Recine 
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Our next shocking transfer was brought to us by a piece of pure Harry Redknapp logic: need a striker in the January transfer window, get one who's scored two goals all season.

There can be little doubting that Louis Saha was a very handy forward back in his day, but he was well past his best when he arrived in north London and it showed as he made very little impact with Spurs failing to qualify for the UEFA Champions League, leading to Redknapp's exit.

Serge Aurier

The second and last current member of the Lilywhites squad on our list is Serge Aurier, as of yet a huge dud considering the amount of money Mauricio Pochettino and Daniel Levy paid for him.

In two seasons in white and blue so far, the Frenchman has been in and out of the starting Xl like a yo-yo and has been sent off twice.

Grzegorz Rasiak

Football - West Bromwich Albion v Tottenham Hotspur FA Barclays Premiership - The Hawthorns - 05/06 - 28/12/05 
Tottenham's Grzegorz Rasiak chases West Brom's Ronnie Wallwork 
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Nicknamed "The Polish Sniper" for his clinical nature in front of goal, Grzegorz Rasiak must have just been on a huge misfiring spree during his only season with Tottenham.

To be fair to him, he didn't get many opportunities under Martin Jol although hardly helped himself by barely threatening to find the back of the net when he did get minutes and thus getting himself offloaded to Southampton nine months down the line from signing.

Vincent Janssen

The second striker role at the Lane has been something of a poisoned chalice in recent times with names such as the aforementioned Soldado, Fernando Llorente and this man Vincent Janssen all struggling whilst Harry Kane goes out and gets the goals.

But the fact that when the Dutchman Janssen finally did leave the club he went straight to the Mexican top-flight tells you that it was probably more about his ability or lack thereof that made him a £17m mistake for Tottenham.

Ilie Dumitrescu 

Ilie Dumitrescu would have hoped not to live up to the first three letters of his surname in a footballing sense when he swapped his native Bucharest for north London in 1994 - he couldn't avoid this.

Instead of thriving at Gerry Francis' Spurs as expected, the speedy winger joined a vast number of players to be brought in based on their performances at FIFA World Cups only for it to be proved that the tournament was just a flash in the pan for them.

Vlad Chiriches 

From one calamitous Spurs Romanian to another and centre-back Vlad Chiriches, who represented them between 2013 and 2015.

If Lilywhites haven't already forgotten who he is they will certainly be wanting to as the Romania skipper frustrated them with 43 porr performances for the club before Pochettino finally saw sense and decided he wasn't up to the mark.

Jonathan Blondel

Football - Carling Cup Third Round - Tottenham Hotspur v West Ham United - 29/10/03 
Spurs' Jonathan Blondel in action 
Mandatory Credit:Action Images / Paul Childs

All the big sides have done it and Spurs can boast more than one instance of it, signing the next big thing in a certain position and watching them fade away, see Jonathan Blondel.

Perhaps the Lilywhites put a bit too much pressure on the midfield prodigy by plucking him from the now-liquidated minnows Mouscron in his Belgian homeland in spite of Manchester United's interest and giving him his Premier League debut at the age of 18

Mido

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Mido - Tottenham Hotspur in action 
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By scoring a few goals whilst on loan from Roma in the second half of 2005/2006, Mido was able to convince Spurs to fork out the better part of £5m on him in the following summer.

Mido's permanent stay at White Hart Lane would last a single term and it was a miserable one with just five goals and only one of them in the league.