Tottenham Transfer Talk - Monday Afternoon Update

Giovani Lo Celso will soon be a Spurs player

Morning folks and I greet you with the news that Nabil Fekir is going to Real Betis to replace Giovani Lo Celso.

The fee is €20m (£17.97m - $22.44m) plus add-ons and includes his younger brother Yassin Fakir. Nabil is signing a 5-year deal.

Quick reminder for new readers, there are further informative articles below this one and for anyone who has not seen Troy Parrott's performance against Juventus my last post has a video of it.
Troy Parrott vs Juventus

That deal will be completed today as he is joining Real Betis on their pre-season tour and that begins tomorrow.

Some people are suggesting his knee must be ruined if he is going for that fee, but they seem to forget he only had a year left on his contract and as I keep saying, players with only a year left on their contract have little value.

Toby Alderweireld isn't worth £25m (€27.82m - $31.20m) at his age and we have to be careful with players like Danny Rose coming into the last year of a contract next summer and losing value.

As you all know now he expects to stay and that's the reason why. Daniel Levy will refuse to accept any offer under £25m, thus he isn't going to be going anywhere, but as reported many times now, he WILL NOT sign a new contract and has informed the club of that.

Pochettino has, therefore, informed him that he will not be a guaranteed first-choice starter, but I will add, that Alderweireld is happy at Spurs, it's his father and agents we have a problem with, not Toby.

A reminder once again of those players currently with 2 years left on their contracts.

Contracts Ending in 2021

• 29-year-old (30 next July) Danny Rose (looking for a new club)
• 25-year-old (26 next January) Eric Dier (available for the right offer)
• 29-year-old (30 in August) Moussa Sissoko
• 28-year-old (29 next June) Victor Wanyama (has an ongoing knee condition so fitness issues - for sale)
• 21-year-old (22 in December) Cameron Carter-Vickers
• 22-year-old (23 next April) Josh Onomah (for sale)
• 24-year-old (25 next February) Georges-Kévin N'koudou (for sale)
• 18-year-old (19 in September) Oliver Skipp (expect he'll be offered a new deal)
• 22-year-old (23 next February) Luke Amos (recovering from long term injury and out on loan to QPR)

You'll note from the list produced of Spurs players for sale, those with 2 years left on their contracts figure highly. Surprise, surprise.

Cameron Carter-Vickers becomes an eligible homegrown player next season, he is no longer considered a youngster then.

Youngsters are 21 or under on 1st January. A season starts in August so anyone who was 21 or younger at the beginning of that year is considered a youngster and does not have to be named in a Premier League squad.

Anyone 22 and over must be named in a 25-man squad to be eligible to play.

End of tangent!

Nabil Fekir agreeing to a Real Betis move means the Spanish club can now release Giovani Lo Celso. The fee hasn't moved from the fee I gave you on 4 July, it's €68m (£61.10m - $76.27m). 

As I have said many times, it was agreed before the Copa America and what you read in the press is smoke and mirrors. We have been waiting for the Fekir deal to be completed and for Lo Celso to have a 2-week holiday after the Copa America.

That brings us to now and Lo Celso arriving in London tomorrow. That means that instead of the end of the week, this one might be sewn up by the middle of the week and there might be two medicals on Wednesday (getting a bit ahead of myself with excitement!).

We have verbal agreements over the terms of a contract with a player who is going to excite Spurs fans and it is just a question now of putting that in writing, dotting the i's and crossing the t's.

At the weekend I was expecting this deal to be completed by the end of the week but it's moving faster than expected.

I reminded you all along that Eriksen was not tied to this deal in any way, it was going to happen regardless of Eriksen and this is just another example to him that Spurs mean business and an extra incentive to sign the 4-year deal he has been offered.

Ryan Sessegnon has his medical booked for Wednesday, which tells you that is all agreed too.

That will certainly make the squad a little better but it is understandable the Spurs fans have concerns about defence and particularly the full-back roles.

Jumping all over the place did Ryan Sessegnon no favours last season in his first in the Premier League. He didn't play in one set position.

He started 26 games and came on as a substitute in 9 others.

Left-Wing 3

Right-Wing 7

Left-Midfield 16

Left-Back 6

Centre-Forward 1

Right-Midfield 1

Right-Back 1

Total 35 games

Seven different positions in one season. He missed two games through a groin strain and stayed on the bench for one.

This doesn't include Cup games.

Our full-backs are our wingers effectively, particularly when we play three at the back so while people insist he is a left-winger, I can see us developing him as a left-back who attacks in the same way Danny Rose does.

The fee, £23m (€25.56m - $28.67m) plus add-ons is a little more sensible than the stupid £40m-50m (€44.45-€55.57m - $48,87m-$62.33m) figures the press were talking last summer,

Who they are going to take on loan I don't know yet, expecting either Onomah or N'Koudou. As you know, they wanted Oliver Skipp, but his performance against Juventus showed he needs Premier League football.

I best leave it there and start the next article with something else I have just thought of while writing this.