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Lewis Holtby leaving Tottenham on a permanent transfer

We've been Hamburgled.

Paul Gilham

You can't double tap it, you can't RT it, you can't swipe it right and you can't share it. Nevertheless it would seem that Lewis Holtby is gone from Tottenham Hotspur.

It would seem that there was an obligatory purchase clause as part of his loan. Hamburg were obligated to buy the midfielder after a certain amount of appearances. Given that it has kicked in after three whole matches, it would seem that Tottenham was pretty eager to move the German on.

Lest we all forget, Lewis Holtby's arrival was greeted as a deal of the century and something we would be insane to pass up on. And I suppose he was quite a deal. After all, you don't find just anybody who can cut open the defenses of teams you meet in Europa League qualifiers.

Lewis Holtby was hailed as the next big thing at Tottenham Hotspur and fans fell in love with him, partly because they were enamored of the fancy German midfielder they had only seen in youtube compliations, but mostly because he took a lot of pictures of himself smiling. Despite all the hype, kisses to the shirt, and pictures of himself in his jammie jams, four different managers were unable to get anything really worthwhile out of him in England.

And yet many fans compared his departure to Sandro's in terms of heart break. Now just so we're clear, losing a man who completely shut down Zlatan Ibrahimovic and AC Milan in the Champions League and was one of the best DMs in world football for a while there was just as bad as losing a guy who's most memorable moment at Spurs was tackling Howard Webb in a testimonial.

See you later, Lewis. I'm sure we'll play whatever mediocre German team you end up on for a Europa League qualifier one of these days.