Is Lopes a viable right-back option?

There are suggestions that Tottenham are set to hold talks with Sporting defender, Miguel Lopes amid Kyle Naughton interest from Swansea.

Is Lopes a viable right-back option?


Depending upon the account you choose to believe, Swansea made made an enquiry which is some quarters is deemed to be an official bid. That leads sensationalist sites to claim he is 'on the verge' of a move, in which case 90% of playing in the game are 'on the verge' of a move.

Sporting, formerly know as Sporting Lisbon have more than one player we are interested in, Spurs have been tracking the progress of England U21 international Eric Dier for a couple of years now. The suggestion is we will be talking to his representatives tomorrow so who is Migel Lopes and could there be anything to these stories?

Firstly he is 27 and we normally look for players with a longer shelf life than that, secondly his contract runs until 2018 which suggests a permanent transfer would be unlikely, we prefer to source players with a year or two left on their contract as they are cheaper.

He is not home grown and a club can only have 17 non home grown players over 21 in a Premier League squad of 25. Currently we have 19 so buying a back up right-back as a non home grown player to sit on a bench makes little sense. Simply makes it more difficult to buy and play other overseas players like Wilfried Bony or Loïc Rémy, it would entail more sales.

Simply loaning the player as has been suggested make no difference either, we still have too many non home grown players, remember we have just signed Michel Vorm, Dutch.

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On the plus side he is a right-back who can play left-back, much in the same way as Naughton can. Also Ryan Fredericks is coming through and as I suggested in my earlier Naughton article, he is perhaps a season away from being the reserve right-back. If that is the case then a season loan from an experienced right-back may be beneficial for his development and should Walker continue to struggle with his groin then experience is on hand to take over.

Walker may be more of a concern than the club are letting on,certainly at the moment he is being eased back gently but we are trying to buy players with Premier League experience and Lopes has none, would we take that risk with our defence?

His strengths are listed as keeping possession, passing and heading with his main weakness crossing. In our new system crossing from a full-back is essential. As we have seen on the North American tour the 'wide' men are playing as inverted, they tuck in and attack the channel rather than go outside. It is the full-backs job to support the attack and provide the width so the better they are at crossing the ball the better. Crossing as a weakness doesn't shout to me buy buy buy, neither does the quick comparison graphic with Naughton above.

It seems a very strange purchase or loan move, unless of course their are behind the scenes moves to sell or loan out some of the non home grown players we have.