Today’s Tottenham Hotspur transfer article in the Independent likely won’t do much to calm anyone’s jittery nerves with just a few days left to go in the window. But it’s not nothing. Our good buddy Miguel Delaney writes that Spurs are scrambling to bring in additional reinforcements before the window slams shut on September 1, and that they are looking at a variety of players, including Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers, West Ham’s Lucas Paqueta, Atalanta’s Ademola Lookman, Monaco’s Maghnes Akliouche, and even a potential late run at RB Leipzig attacker Xavi Simons, who has been linked with Chelsea the entire window.
Delaney states that Morgan Rogers is the priority target at the moment, but it could take a bid of £100m to get him out of Aston Villa, who are signalling they have no intention of selling him. Spurs are also wary of making a long-shot bid for a player that could fall apart in a high profile way, especially after the failed pursuits of Morgan Gibbs-White and Eberechi Eze. Paqueta could also be a very difficult transfer to get across the line, since Spurs have already purchase Mohammed Kudus from their cross-town rivals and Paqueta is seen as critical to whatever fortunes West Ham have for this season. Akliouche has also been on Spurs’ shortlist for a while now.
Lookman and Simons are new additions to this shortlist, at least as far as I’ve seen thus far. Lookman is a talented player and has excelled in Serie A, playing as both an attacking midfielder and forward, but he turns 28 in a couple of months, would be fairly expensive to sign, and would not be considered a long-term reinforcement for Spurs. Lookman does, however, want to leave Atalanta and could maybe be persuaded by a move to North London. Simons, by contrast, is still stuck in limbo after being linked with Chelsea in one of the more protracted transfer sagas of the summer; it remains to be seen if Spurs can take advantage of Chelsea dragging their feet over the transfer near the end of the window.
Look, none of this feels great, but at least the club is briefing that it’s still working on targets, rather than maintaining radio silence as they have most of the summer. We’ll just have to wait to see if any of these targets are actually targets, or if Spurs might try and pull another heretofore unknown rabbit out of their hat.