Looking at the players Tottenham Hotspur could sign this January – and the rumoured arrivals that won’t be happening.
Quite a few Premier League clubs are likely to be pretty quiet over the course of the January transfer window – but that isn’t going to be the case with Tottenham Hotspur. The club are still only part-way through the process of remoulding the squad in line with Ange Postecoglou’s vision, and we’re likely to see plenty of incomings and outgoings this month – but which of Spurs’ reported targets are realistic acquisitions, and which are wildly unlikely to materialise?
We’ve taken a look at seven of the players most persistently or recently linked with a move to North London and run the rule over how likely they are to happen, because a lot of the paper talk seems almost certain to be well wide of the mark. Spurs do, at least, have one massive advantage over almost every other club chasing the top four or even the title this season – they have an enormous amount of room to work within the FFP rules, so while other clubs are forced to wheel, deal and pinch pennies, Spurs can more or less do what they feel they need, at least within the constraints of Daniel Levy’s infamously tight control of the purse strings…
We’ve already covered Drăgușin’s proposed move in detail and discussed the qualities he could bring to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, as well as the areas of his game that need some more development – but we wrote all that under the assumption that a deal between Spurs and Genoa was not far from being completed. That may have changed.
The Romanian centre-back’s agent has now publicly said that Drăgușin doesn’t want to leave Genoa in the middle of the season as he’d feel like he had “unfinished business” at the Serie A side – which seemingly contradicts reports that he had agreed personal terms with Spurs. The comments may just be a bit of PR wrangling, of course, but at the very least there is still some negotiating to be done between the two sides, while Napoli could also put up some stiff competition for the 21-year-old’s signature. We still think this is more likely to happen than not, but it’s not yet a done deal.
Won’t sign – Jean-Clair Todibo
Spurs have reportedly been scouting the OGC Nice centre-back for some time, and it’s not hard to see why – he’s been brilliant this season, has an exceptionally well-rounded game and is both technically impressive and physically superb. He has all the tools to be a world-class defender, and if Spurs had a sniff of signing him then it would seem to be a fine deal to make.
The problem is simply that Nice are now owned by the same people that control sporting affairs at Manchester United, and they will almost certainly make sure that the Ligue 1 side’s star asset is funnelled towards Old Trafford. The only way this deal becomes plausible is if United decide that they can’t spend the money this winter, or if they decide to look elsewhere instead. That could happen, but until then this deal is firmly on ice.
The Juventus and England Under-21s winger is an interesting prospect – he’s something of a throwback, a left-footed left-winger who looks to hug the touchline, get to the byline, and swing crosses into the box. That makes him a little anachronistic, but he’s also more than talented enough to have broken into Juve’s first team and he generated quite a bit of hype last season.
He hasn’t been able to press on and nail a starting spot down under Max Allegri, unfortunately, and so it seems that the Old Lady are happy to let one of their most gifted youngsters leave, with Spurs one of the clubs most insistently linked with his signature. Given the injuries they have endured down the left flank, we can certainly see this happening, but could also see the manager being unsure as to whether Iling-Junior fits in with his plans, especially without a target man up front, and could equally see Levy baulking at the rumoured €20m (£12.7m) asking price. We don’t think it’s probable, per se, but we can still see this one happening.
Could sign – Jota
The Portuguese winger played under Postecoglou at Celtic and earned himself a lucrative move to Saudi Pro League side Al-Ittihad this summer – a transfer which was announced with perhaps the weirdest social media video in sporting history – but things fell apart almost instantaneously and his new club are keen to get shot of him after just five matches, with all sorts of rumours swirling around the reasons why the player has fallen out of favour so quickly.
Spurs could offer him a way out, likely with an initial loan move featuring an option to buy in the summer. Jota scored 28 goals in just two seasons at Parkhead and could prove to be a very useful addition with so many players from across the front three currently either injured or absent at the Asian Cup. This is one of those moves that makes so much sense for all parties that it seems more likely to happen than not.
Won’t sign – Conor Gallagher
Could sign – Arthur Vermeeren
We covered Vermeeren’s situation in more detail when we discussed Arsenal’s likely January moves, but the situation is essentially the same for Spurs – Royal Antwerp aren’t in a hurry to sell but could easily have their arm twisted by a fee of around €20m (£17.3m), and there are enough clubs in the market for the 18-year-old Belgian midfielder that a bidding war could easily be sparked this winter. There’s a chance this ends up cooling off a little and the clubs in the queue decide to wait until summer, but demand is so high for a player regarded as one of the brightest midfield prospects in Europe that we suspect someone will force the issue over the next month if they can. That’s as likely to be Spurs as anyone else.
