Pau Lopez could be announced today

TRANSFER TALK

Sky Sports were telling us yesterday that an agreement had not been reached between Tottenham and Espanyol for young goalkeeper Pau Lopez.

The news from Spain, from Catalan based newspaper Sport, Espanyol are a Catalan-based club, has been that a verbal agreement had been reached and that Lopez had started clearing out his locker. The main non Catalan-based newspaper in Spain, Marca, who are Madrid based, were suggesting that a deal had not been struck, that Espanyol didn't want to lose Lopez and were not particularly keen on a loan deal.

That stance has changed and they are now saying too that a deal has been reached and Lopez will be joining Tottenham in the next few days. Madrid based AS are reporting that a deal could even be announced today.

The deal as you know is a payment of £519,272 (€600,000 - AUS$885,856 - US$677,109) for a season long loan with a buy option of £6.05-million (€7m - AUS$10.33m - US$7.90m). In addition to that there is a compensation clause Espanyol wanted inserted that has been holding up the transfer that Espanyol would prefer didn't happen. The Spanish side have wanted and now got a small compensation fee clause if Tottenham do not take up the buy option at the end of the season.

That was the final hurdle to a deal that should now go through. The news from Spain is that Espanyol have now given up hope of holding on to Lopez and have been searching for a new backup keeper.

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