Tottenham Hotspur should have signed Wilfried Zaha from Crystal Palace in 2016, according to The Athletic’s James Maw via The View From The Lane podcast (March 3rd, 34:50).

What’s the word?

Spurs were interested in securing the Ivory Coast international’s signature four years ago.

The BBC reported in August of 2016 that the club had tabled a bid of £15m for the winger and entered into talks with Palace over a possible deal.

There were subsequently reports that a new bid worth around £25m could have been tabled in December, though Spurs instead secured Moussa Sissoko’s signature.

At the time, the France international was a right winger, with Spurs paying £30m to bring him in from Newcastle United, though he has since been transformed into a marauding central midfielder.

Maw, though, believes that Zaha was the man Spurs should have pulled out all the stops for; he has since played 129 times for Palace, scoring 29 goals and registering 31 assists and is valued at £80m by the Eagles.

He said: “The touted fee for Zaha in 2016 when Spurs were supposedly close was £30m right, which is ultimately what they spent on Sissoko instead.

“And I know people now think that Sissoko deal was kind of worth the money, but Zaha surely would have been a much better signing for those first two seasons.”

Perhaps

Missing out on Zaha seems to stick in the craw of a number of Spurs fans.

He would surely have been an excellent first-team player, a skilful dribbler and a rapidly quick winger.

However, his output has not exactly set the world alight.

Since the move fell apart, Zaha has played 129 times, scoring 29 times and assisting 31 further goals. That equates to a goal involvement per game of 0.3.

That is not a huge number.

No clues whatsoever: Which seasons do these iconic Spurs images belong to?

Now, as Maw says, Sissoko has evolved into a brilliant central midfielder, though he was not exactly signed to play in that role.

Zaha could well have reached the next level at Spurs under Mauricio Pochettino but, ultimately, we’ll never know.

It doesn’t exactly feel like the best time to discuss it either; Spurs failed to bring him in. That’s where the story ends.

Meanwhile, Spurs have been blasted for creating a "mess"!