Executive Fabio Paratici is set to officially return to Tottenham Hotspur as the director of recruitment when October strikes, but he is obviously already making his influence and imprint on the building of the 2025/26 squad felt.
Although Paratici was trying to push Tottenham to bring another elite player from Serie A this past transfer window in Atalanta forward Ademola Lookman, he actually ended up signing a different Serie A forward to Tottenham.
Tottenham brought in Randal Kolo Muani from PSG on a straight-up loan deal, and while there is no option to buy for a player who revived his value in his six-month loan spell with Paratici's former flame Juventus in Italy, the move itself still qualifies as a bargain for Spurs.
In fact, Give Me Sport's Danny Rust reports that Juventus were floored at the end of the transfer window when they realized what Tottenham did. See, Juventus were negotiating with PSG for weeks on weeks to try and keep Kolo Muani beyond the 2024/25 season, as they were impressed with how much he helped them in qualifying for the Champions League.
Tottenham made Juventus look like amateurs
Instead, Kolo Muani switched allegiances to North London, and Juve were incredulous that Spurs ended up paying just 4.4 million pounds to PSG in a loan fee. If you aren't sure what to make of that number, Give Me Sport note that Juve were prepared to pay double that figure to PSG, and they still watched him end up in Tottenham.
That's an incredible transfer coup for Spurs, who can negotiate a permanent deal one year later if Kolo Muani shines and is adamant to PSG he wants to leave. Given how poor he was for PSG but how brilliant he was for Eintracht Frankfurt and then was solid at Juventus, he may not find a reason to stay in France if he shines in the Premier League for Spurs, too.
Another comparison point to give you an idea of how sweet this loan deal is, Bayern Munich have spent 13 million pounds on Chelsea striker Nicolas Jackson's loan fee, and that's even before you factor in a potential 70 million pound buy clause at the end of the season.
Most players get four of five years on a contract when they make a loan transfer, so five years of Kolo Muani at 4.4 million pounds per year would be 22 million pounds. So when you look at it from that perspective, Paratici proved once again that he is the master of the dark arts on the transfer market by stunning Juventus with this inspired transfer move. Now that's a bit of genius even Daniel Levy can get behind.