Tottenham Hotspur are busy in a tug-of-war with Nottingham Forest over attacking midfield transfer target Morgan Gibbs-White, who should be coming to Spurs after the North London giants activated MGW's secret release clause.
Though Spurs supporters have one eye fixed on the Gibbs-White transfer saga, they have another on the next big move Tottenham need to secure before the 2025/26 Premier League season begins - and that is a new defensive midfielder who can anchor the team.
Tottenham have a couple of talented young midfielders rising through the ranks in Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall from last summer's transfer window, but they need a true No. 6 profile who is a proven Premier League starter.
Joao Palhinha is one option, but the preferred candidate for Tottenham is none other than Crystal Palace young gun Adam Wharton, who is widely regarded as the best up-and-coming No. 6 in English football. He appears to be Spurs manager Thomas Frank's preferred option, too, which is exactly what many Tottenham fans want to hear.
Tottenham might as well wait another year or two
However, according to a report from TBR Football's Graeme Bailey and Jamie Brown, Crystal Palace want 100 million pounds in order to sell Wharton, so Tottenham are expected to table their interest in the player and revisit it at a future date. Wharton isn't interested in rushing a move from Palace, so Palace, who have absolutely no interest in selling the player for anything less than an exorbitant fee, are under no pressure to make a move.
Tottenham may have to wait until later in the transfer window to see if the situation changes closer to the deadline, but since Wharton isn't pushing and has three more seasons left of his contract, Tottenham might as well wait until next year if they want Palace to ask for less. And even that strategy might not yield anything.
The fact is, Tottenham know that Wharton is a gem, because they scouted the 21-year-old midfielder back when he was a youth player. They could have signed him before he went to Crystal Palace, and with the Eagles holding all the cards here and asking for an even juicier amount than the prices Spurs were quoted for either Eberechi Eze or Marc Guehi, they are probably kicking themselves.
Daniel Levy's approach on the transfer market is always risk averse. He's spent a little more than usual on Dominic Solanke, Mohammed Kudus, and now Gibbs-White in the past two transfer windows, but nine figures for Wharton is a sum he won't even agree to.
He's going to try and stall Palace out to wait for a bargain, but the Tottenham faithful who are sold on Wharton will say that if Spurs are just as smitten with the No. 6, there's nothing wrong with paying the quoted fee when inferior players at less scarce positions are going for not much less than him.