Jamie Redknapp has laid into Tottenham for selling “one of the best midfield players in the league”.

Tottenham let Mousa Dembele join Guangzhou R&F for £11m last week, in the midst of a crippling injury crisis.

Dembele himself had only managed to start seven of 22 Premier League games this season due to an ankle injury, with the 31-year-old’s fitness troubles plaguing him for the past few campaigns.

In his pomp, the Belgian was part ballet dancer, part bulldozer, but those times were beyond him when Tottenham sold a player whose contract had four months left to run for an eight-figure sum.

Yet Redknapp believes Tottenham have made “a big mistake” in letting him go.

“In a way, I have no sympathy for Spurs because you’ve just sold one of the best midfield players in the league,” he told Sky Sports.

“When you talk to the Tottenham players about Mousa Dembele, everybody says he is unbelievable.

“He hasn’t played as many games as you’d like but now, how much could you do with him? Why have you left yourselves so short? If Tottenham were out of the Champions League and out of the FA Cup, I might get it but you cannot make me understand that Dembele move. Financially, it might be good, but not for the team.

“I just think it is a big mistake because you’ve got such a good player. If he goes for a free at the end of the season, that’s fair enough, but right now, you need bodies and when you’ve got someone as good as him, he might not be able to play two games a week but you’re going to need him on Thursday.

“You’ve got Olivier Skipp, who is a great young player, but you need your experienced heads at the moment. It’s an important time for Tottenham.

“There’s no doubt that they are going to be working hard behind the scenes now to get some players in. There will be players available to loan or buy but you’ve got to be clever in the market because it’s not in Daniel Levy’s make-up to want to get someone who charges too much for a player – he’d rather not do it.

“But now it is a case of needs must because, although it was such a big three points, you don’t want to slip out of that top four. You’ve got so many big games coming up and you need to try and find some players.”