There’s an interesting report from Give Me Sport of which I will not distort nor otherwise cut short. Apparently there was more going on at Tottenham Hotspur on deadline day than just the loan signing of Randal Kolo Muani. Give Me Sport says (exclusively!) that Spurs made a last-minute approach to Lyon to sign 20-year-old Belgian left winger Malick Fofana AFTER the successful loan for RKM, but Lyon turned them down flat because there would be no time to find a successor.
Look, Fofana’s pretty baller and a good potential source for creativity in attack, something that Spurs pretty desperately need right now. But this rumor, assuming it’s accurate or at least has some grains of truth in it, likely says as much or more about Thomas Frank’s plans for Mathys Tel and Wilson Odobert than it does about improving Spurs in the short term.
Fofana hit the back of the net 11 times for Lyon last season and is a young and dynamic winger with a high upside. But there’s also no question he’d be competing for minutes with players like Brennan Johnson, RKM, Richarlison, Odobert, and Tel depending on Frank’s tactics. That’s some nice depth, but bringing him in would likely mean that Odobert and Tel would be on the outside looking in for most of the season.
And, if we extrapolate, maybe that’s the point? We know Thomas Frank is a manager who likes to develop players — he has a proven track record of it at Brentford. Spurs presumably purchased Tel outright this summer knowing that he might take a year or two of seasoning to develop into a first team regular — same with Wilson. If Fofana came in, maybe one or both of them get high-profile loans on the continent so they can get regular minutes. Or, maybe Odobert is considered a high upside target for another club and Spurs decide to cash in on him. Either way it sure looks like Spurs were planning a development year for one or both of them.
The Fofana deal didn’t happen, so we’ll probably never know, but it is interesting. Odobert and Tel are good depth right now and will likely get a decent number of minutes in cups and as reserves, but it sure doesn’t look like either of them are in Frank’s first choice starting XI right now. If Frank thinks they’re the future and can take over for some of the older players as they age out, maybe that’s ok.