There was joy and despair as all but one of Tottenham Hotspur’s loan players’ seasons came to an end across Europe.
The 2023/24 campaign has now come to an end for many before their international commitments or a summer’s rest. Spurs have had players out on loan across England in the Premier League and Football League as well as abroad in countries such as Spain, Turkey, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy.
Ivan Perisic also went on loan to Hajduk Split and managed two starts and five substitute appearances following his cruciate ligament injury, scoring a stunning volley this month, and he will feature for Croatia at next month’s European Championships before joining Hajduk permanently this summer when his contract at the north London club comes to an end.
Here’s how all of Spurs’ other remaining five loan players got on over the past week:
Troy Parrott (Excelsior Rotterdam)
Troy Parrott starred on Saturday in Excelsior Rotterdam’s play-off semi-final second leg with a hat-trick to continue his excellent season. While the Republic of Ireland international has racked up 13 goals and five assists in 27 Eredivisie games this season, Excelsior have faced a tough campaign and their 16th-place finish meant they entered the play-offs to try to stay up.
That play-off system sees the six teams who finished from third to eighth in the Eerste Divisie – the Dutch second division – face off in a double-legged knockout system with the 16th-placed side from the top flight.
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Excelsior overcame fifth-placed ADO Den Haag over two legs 9-2, with Parrott grabbing an assist in the first leg in midweek and then scoring a treble in the second leg, including a delightful chip over the goalkeeper to open the scoring just two minutes into the game.
Another little dink over the keeper with his left foot while on the run on 26 minutes doubled his tally and then he sealed his hat-trick on the half hour mark with a calmly-taken penalty, which sent the goalkeeper the wrong way.
The Rotterdam side will now take on NAC Breda, who finished eighth in the Eerste Divisie in the next round of the play-offs with the first leg away on Tuesday night and the second leg at home on Sunday.
Joe Rodon (Leeds United)
Joe Rodon and Leeds United suffered heartache on Sunday as they lost 1-0 to Southampton in the Championship play-off final at Wembley.
The defeat meant that Leeds miss out on a return to the Premier League despite amassing 90 points in the regular season and finishing third, only for fourth-placed Saints to pip them in the play-offs.
Rodon received praise despite the defeat with Leeds Live handing him a seven in their player ratings with the review as he tried to cover for others’ mistakes: “Rock solid throughout the game in defence. Badly exposed by others at points. Massive slide to clear the ball after Meslier’s aforementioned save. Carried some of the response early in the second period with his breaks from defence. Some passes and touches went astray as the game entered its latter stages.”
The 26-year-old Wales defender had a great season on loan, playing 50 times for Leeds as a near ever-present with 4,384 minutes to his name. Leeds did not agree an option to sign Rodon and without the financial boost of promotion to the Premier League that may leave others to enter the race to sign him now this summer with Tottenham willing to let him move on.
Tanguy Ndombele (Galatasaray)
Such is football that Rodon played so many minutes and so well this season and fell agonisingly short, yet his Spurs team-mate Tanguy Ndombele barely appeared for Galatasaray across this campaign yet added a second league title to his CV in consecutive years.
The Frenchman once again watched on from the bench as Galatasaray won 3-1 at Konyaspor and despite the previous week’s defeat at home to second-placed Fenerbahce, with Ndombele not in the squad, the title was claimed by three points. That means Ndombele adds a Turkish Super Lig title to his accomplishments, to go with last season’s Serie A one with Napoli, where he also rarely started.
This time around the Frenchman has played five minutes of football since mid-March and 31 minutes in the Turkish Super Lig since the end of January. In total he managed 454 minutes of league football and 661 minutes across all competitions in 26 appearances. To put that into some context, Ivan Perisic played almost as much league football this season, despite missing most of it with a cruciate ligament injury.
Ndombele’s future remains away from Tottenham and with a year left on his contract, all eyes are on where he ends up next. Some clubs might just be thinking he’s a good luck charm even if he doesn’t play.
Djed Spence (Genoa)
Djed Spence ended his spell at Genoa with around half an hour from the bench as they won 2-0 at home against Bologna, finishing their Serie A campaign in 11th place.
In recent weeks, the 23-year-old full-back has been in a pattern of starting a game and then coming off the bench in the next one. Overall though it has been a successful time in Italy for Spence as he has got plenty of minutes to his name after his loan at Leeds came to a premature end.
The full-back played in 16 matches in Serie A, getting 851 minutes under his belt, which is double what he got in total across his time at Leeds this season and last season at Tottenham.
Spence is another who has a future that lies away from Spurs and the club will be looking to find him a permanent move this summer.
Alejo Veliz (Sevilla)
Alejo Veliz at least ended his disappointing loan at Sevilla with a couple of minutes from the bench against Barcelona in the 2-1 home defeat to the Catalan giants.
Minutes have been hard to come by for the Argentine and the 20-year-old striker has played just 29 of them for Sevilla since joining in the winter transfer window with only 11 minutes to his name since February, suggesting he would have been better served by remaining at Tottenham and continuing to adapt to the English game.
Another loan move could be on the cards this summer as Tottenham might struggle to include the young forward in their Europa League squad due to his foreign player status, which he does not have in the Premier League.
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