Lopez will cost £13.65m

TRANSFER TALK

Mauricio Pochettino wants a young goalkeeper to develop into the long-term number one. We have a young tam in all areas with other youngsters coming through, except it seems at goalkeeper where we haven't had a young keeper we have wanted to trust with the gloves in years.

Hugo Lloris we hear will be out for a month, Michel Vorm will take over and we then have probably Luke McGeee as backup goalkeeper. Will we step up our interest in Lopez and try to negotiate a deal?

Pau Lopez has been identified and an initial bid placed, we are told of £1.74-million (€2m - AUS$2.92m - US$2.26m). That bid was a long way from the initial reports of what Espanyol wanted for Lopez. They were after Federico Fazio, who is now a Roma player, but Espanyol were originally after £5-million (€5.75m - AUS$8.40m - US$6.49m) plus Fazio plus bonuses (not just the cash as generally reported) so that is perhaps £9-million (€10.35m - AUS$15.14m - US$1.67m) plus bonuses.

Now we hear Espanyol want his full release clause of £13.65-million (€15m - AUS$21.92m - US$16.91m) which isn't a mile away from their original,but it is a lot to pay for a backup goalkeeper. What will we do up our offer, the Spanish are expecting us to, hence the increase in their demands no Fazio is not an option.

A loan with a guaranteed buy clause would be an option, but all we would be doing is paying the same amount spread over two seasons so he might as well be bought outright and paid for in 2 or 3 instalments if that were the case.

Spanish Article

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