Stephane Dalmat - Midfield - #680

Since the last post about Bobby didn’t get much love, let’s try this one.

Stephane Dalmat takes his place on this list not because of a lack of quality, but the frustration at him conspiring to end a period with the club in 2003-04 that should have lasted longer than the few months it did.Joining on loan from Internazionale, he took a little time to find his feet in England. Once he had, his goal threat and thrilling ability to beat opposition players began to come to the fore in some sparkling displays.In a season of struggle for Spurs, on his best days Dalmat captured the imagination of supporters. His brace in a 4-1 win over Birmingham City particularly hinted at what he might do should he join the team in the long run.Yet there were a few too many bad days to make a deal viable. Particularly troublesome were off the pitch shenanigans which did not endear him to his teammates, notably a fight with the then 17-year-old Jamie O'Hara.

O'Hara recalled: “I was only a kid, I think I was 17, I was in the reserve team changing room and I was obviously really hungry to do well.

“I had a lot of desire and he was obviously playing in the reserves and didn’t give a monkeys that he was there.

“I dug him out because he was just walking around being lazy. I came in after the game and I just said, ‘Stephane, if you don’t want to be here, just don’t be here!’

“And he just got up, walked over to me and I was thinking, ‘we’re going to have a Barney here, he’s going to say something…’

"…and he just slapped me in the face!

“A full-on, open palm of his hand slap, not a punch – just tsh right across the grid!

“So obviously I’ve then gone to steam into him and everyone has jumped in…. but the cheek of it, to just slap me in the face.

“I was like, ‘WOW!’ It just came out of nowhere!”

Two-and-a-half seasons of frustration at Inter, during which time he never succeeded in securing an extended run in the team, were followed by a loan move to Tottenham Hotspur for the rest of the 2003–04 season, for what looked like an ideal replacement for Christian Ziege. The playmaker's fortunes did not get much better at White Hart Lane where, despite winning over the Spurs fans with some dynamic performances, he did not win over the confidence of then Coach David Pleat.

His debut for Spurs came on 13 September 2003 as a substitute in a 4–2 defeat at Chelsea. However, he suffered with injuries for most of the season.

Dalmat's performances in the first three months of the 2003–04 season impressed many but off the field his attitude convinced Tottenham not to make his move permanent.

Zamora told Jimmy Bullard’s Off the Hook podcast: "We played a game at Spurs. In the first five minutes of the second half he just walked off the pitch.

“The ball wasn’t out of play or anything and he just starts walking off the pitch. I think I was on the bench and I thought he has pulled his hamstring or something.

“He walks down the tunnel. Doesn’t say anything to anybody. We played the game and then came in and he had shot.

“So we are like ‘Where is he, where is he? I don’t know. Not sure’. He was supposed to come in for the warm down – but he doesn’t come in for two days.

“I find out in the end that he has got a plane to catch and he can’t get to the airport after the game because of the traffic and all that so he has gone off the pitch, walked down the tunnel ‘off I go I’m going to get my plane’.

“He went back to home to France. He was just one of those players that just didn’t care."

While being a very skillful player, he managed to play for 12 different teams, in which he was released by almost all of them due to his off field attitude. He retired in 2014 after a year without a team. His last team was Nîmes in League 2 of France.

Career statistics

Games played: 348, Goals scored: 24

Spurs statistics

Games played: 22, Goals scored: 3