The agent of a Tottenham summer signing has explained why his client chose the North London side.
Sign up to our LondonWorld Today newsletter
Sign up
Thank you for signing up!
Did you know with an ad-lite subscription to LondonWorld, you get 70% fewer ads while viewing the news that matters to you.
Submitting...
Tottenham enjoyed a pretty solid summer transfer window, snapping up a number of key weapons for Thomas Frank, including Xavi Simons. Spurs missed out on the signing of Eberechi Eze to Arsenal and they decided to go and hijack Chelsea’s deal for Simons.
Chelsea had an agreement with Simons but made it clear that they couldn’t actually pull off the transfer until they made a number of player sales. That money was eventually freed up, but not before Tottenham approached Simons to strike a deal, agreeing to pay RB Leipzig for £52million.
Tottenham were quicker to wrap things up, but that wasn’t the only reason Simons agreed to make the move to North London instead of West.
“Tottenham and Chelsea are both fantastic clubs with solid projects, and there was real interest from both sides,” the player’s agent, Ali Barat, told RMC Sport. “Chelsea were always clear with us. They had certain constraints that made it difficult to move forward with discussions.”
“When talks with Tottenham started, it became clear that this would be a project that would be a perfect fit for Xavi.”
Asked about Simons’ frustrating move to PSG that saw him fail to register a single league appearance, Barat added: “PSG weren’t in their current phase of developing young players, even if he did play a few matches. In football, there is no place for regrets. You always have to look ahead of you.”
Frank on Simons’ best position
Simons put in a solid performance against Villarreal during the week, although he was much more effective in the first half than the second. Simons played out wide, which he can do well, but he has traditionally done his best work in the number 10 role.
Asked ahead that this week, Spurs boss Frank said: “No I also think it's how we let the team grow and develop. Where we came from in the summer. I was thinking the other day, I don't think I said it, that last year and the last two seasons, but definitely the last year, it was like [Dejan] Kulusevski, [Heung-min] Son, [James] Maddison, [Dominic] Solanke. None of them is available.
“So it's a completely new front four. Xavi came in late to the picture. Mo [Kudus] came in in pre-season. Dom hasn't been fully fit. We played with Pape and Lucas as the No10. So we're trying to add those layers, you know, game for game.
“And right now, our strongest bit in the team is the structure and I think the way we defend, which is also a very offensive way of defending with the high pressure because we win the ball high, we keep initiative, we can be aggressive and intense.
“And then we are building more into how we can add maybe more offensive players in the future, depending on how players are developing. I also need to say that Lucas is doing quite well in the No10 position. Different profile than Xavi, but offers something different. We're going to play a lot of games this season."