Tottenham stalled at a £25m fee for Gift Orban when Harry Kane was leaving, and the move collapsed before Spurs ever got the striker they were chasing. That is the obvious starting point, because the case for him looked much stronger back in 2023 than it does now.
Orban’s rise was not invented. In March 2023, he scored four goals in Gent's 6-2 away league win over Zulte Waregem, becoming the first Gent player with a four-goal haul in one game in the 21st century. He then hit a hat-trick in 3 minutes and 25 seconds against Istanbul Basaksehir in the Conference League last 16, a Uefa club competition record at the time.
Orban’s early surge
That burst is why Tottenham looked at him as a Kane successor. At that point, the profile made sense: young, ruthless in front of goal and suddenly hard to ignore. Stabaek had already seen enough to know his ceiling was rising, and Gent were getting the direct payoff.
The problem for Spurs is that the move never got over the line. Once the fee stalled at £25m, the striker hunt moved on without a clean solution, and the club were left without the target they had been considering for one of the hardest jobs in English football.
The follow-up has been messier
Since then, the story has been less tidy. Orban’s later run of clubs has not matched the pace of that 2023 surge, which is why the transfer now reads more like a missed gamble than a near-certain fix.
There is a fair case for saying his career has stalled rather than failed outright. The explosive scoring spell was real, and it was good enough to put him on Tottenham’s radar. But Spurs were not chasing a highlight reel, they were trying to replace Kane, and they walked away at the point where the deal was supposed to become serious.
The wider BBC comparison is familiar enough. Manchester City reportedly offered £108m for Káká in January 2009, and Steven Gerrard turned down Chelsea’s potential £32m move in 2005 before going on to make more than 700 appearances for Liverpool. Missed moves do not always age the same way, but Tottenham’s Orban chase now looks like one they let drift when the need was clear.
The only immediate consolation for Spurs is that the present team is not broken. They have taken 4 wins and 1 draw from their last 5 Premier League matches, scored 6 goals and conceded 4. Even so, the original problem remains easy to see: the fee stalled, the striker never arrived, and the Kane replacement search ended unfinished.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →
