Just when it seemed like Tottenham Hotspur were all but guaranteed to close the signing of London star Eberechi Eze from Crystal Palace, North London rivals Arsenal have stole in and signed the attacking midfielder, even though Eze had been expressing a desire to move to Tottenham.
There were even indications that Spurs had agreed to a deal with Palace verbally after already agreeing to terms with Eze himself. That's all thrown out the window now, as Arsenal are the ones who will bring Eze in, circling back to the Premier League playmaker just when everyone thought they had pulled out of the deal in order to give Ethan Nwaneri more minutes as the No. 10 backup to captain Martin Odegaard.
Instead, Arsenal now boast the best two-headed playmaking group in the Premier League, while Spurs are left holding the bag. Arsenal move so well in silence on the transfer market and are especially good at makings Spurs look terrible, as they did the same thing with former Brentford captain Christian Norgaard, swopping in and signing the defensive midfielder just before Tottenham could secure a seemingly slam-dunk transfer.
The more news that comes out about just how badly Tottenham botched this Eze deal, the worse it makes the club look. And what's most baffling about it all is that, behind the scenes, it seems like Tottenham are totally cool with what just happened.
Tottenham are full of themselves
According to a report from the Telegraph's Matt Law, Tottenham, whlie being disappointed, feel as though they did everything they could to sign Eze. Yet per Law's version of events, the way things shook out is that Tottenham agreed to terms with Palace, they couldn't finalize the move because Eze wanted to play, and Arsenal matched the deal and signed him instead becaue Eze chose them over Spurs.
Law's version of events sounds a lot like Tottenham's version of events. It sounds like Tottenham wants us to think they tried all that they could for Eze, but Eze, like Morgan Gibbs-White, chose against them in the end and wanted to play for someone else.
Well, it's hard to believe that Tottenham had agreed to a deal with Palace that fell through because it wasn't finalized over an event everyone knew - that Eze was going to play in the Conference League qualifiers.
It seems more likely that Arsenal simply gave Crystal Palace a better deal, Palace gave Tottenham the chance to match, Daniel Levy being the incredibly cheap chairman that is didn't make a minmally more competitive offer, and thus Eze is off to the rivals. Levy gets to play the hero and point to Eze as the villain, yet Eze had already OK'd a move to Tottenham, knowing full well that Arsenal were still a possibility despite not being favorites.
All of this reeks of what the kids these days call "copium", and Levy has been huffing a lot of that lately while doing absolutely nothing to materially help Tottenham Hotspur. Yet he did everything he could to sign Eze. Nonsense. Anyone who believes what Spurs are selling simply has to explain this away: If Spurs really wanted Eze, why didn't they just pay the release clause last week? Exactly. You can't tell me watching Eze go to Arsenal is worth saving eight million pounds, unless eight million pounds means more to you than, you know, not being a complete laughinstock to your biggest rival year after year.