Welcome to another edition of Miguel Delaney Says Stuff — a periodic series where we look at Stuff Miguel Delaney Says and talk about those things. Are they true? Are they false? We don’t know! But Miggy certainly said them, and he tends to Say Stuff when someone tells him things.
Today we’re looking at Stuff Miggy Said in his most recent Inside Football newsletter, something to which I do not subscribe and probably don’t ever intend to, but to which I have access through certain friends who let me know about the various Stuff that Delaney has said. In this newsletter, Delaney had a couple of new tidbits about Tottenham Hotspur which are particularly interesting in the context of the Brazilian report that suggested an £85m Tottenham bid for Manchester City winger Savinho.
Emphasis is mine.
Tottenham Hotspur won’t be quiet, mind. With Savinho set to be secured for a fee of £65m plus add-ons, they are still chasing Cody Gakpo, and there may even be a right-winger as Roberto De Zerbi has been toying with playing Mohammed Kudus more centrally.
—Miguel Delaney, Inside Football newsletter
Well! As far as Stuff Miguel Delaney Says goes, that’s pretty interesting! And no, I don’t necessarily think the Brazilian report and Delaney’s statement are at odds — the GloboEsporte report wasn’t clear about the nature of the bid, and the £85m that Cahe Mota reported very well could be an all-inclusive number that combines the base fee plus all potential add-ons. £20m in performance or appearance-based clauses doesn’t seem ridiculous, especially at the financial tier we’re talking about here.
£85m feels like an overpay for Savinho, but £65m does not, and anyway if Savinho is good enough that he hits all of his benchmarks for the extra clauses in the fee, well that’s a good thing, right? We want him to do well and perform at a high level, and if he does that’s probably worth an extra £20m. But if Miggy’s correct about the fee structure, that at least FEELS different than the pure adrenaline hit that was the GloboEsporte report.
But let’s also touch on the OTHER things Delaney said in that paragraph. First, Spurs are registering formal interest in Cody Gakpo — fine, we knew that already, whatever. But Roberto De Zerbi “toying with playing Mohammed Kudus more centrally” is ALSO fascinating. It implies a couple of things — we’re not going to be seeing Dejan Kulusevski for a while yet, James Maddison might still be dealing with… stuff, De Zerbi thinks that Kudus’ skill set is more appropriate in the 10 role than as a winger (where we saw him frequently dribble into cul-de-sacs when he was healthy), and we might also see another right sided or flex winger come into the side.
That doesn’t mean we’ll actually see it happen — remember, this is all just Stuff Delaney Says, but it is pretty interesting to think through the ramifications. We’ll see what comes out the rest of today and in the days to come as to whether any of the Stuff Miguel Delaney Says comes to fruition. In the meantime, this sure is fun to think about!