Juventus, Tottenham in active negotiations over Guglielmo Vicario

Guglielmo Vicario, Tottenham Hotspur’s first choice keeper for the past three seasons, hasn’t played a minute of preseason football for Spurs this summer, amidst links to clubs in Italy. His countryman and Spurs head coach Roberto De Zerbi has settled on Antonin Kinsky, who replaced Vicario in last season’s stretch run when Vicario was injured, as Spurs’ new #1 keeper, with Martin Dubravka and Brandon Austin backing him up.

That said, it feels like we’ve been waiting for Vicario to leave for home and Nona’s cooking all summer. Thankfully, thanks to Fabrizio Romano (sigh), we now know that Juventus are now in active negotiations with Spurs to sign Googly Elmo… though they want a loan-to-buy rather than an outright sale.

It’s not clear what Romano means by a “buy clause” — whether that’s a purchase OPTION or purchase OBLIGATION. I’m sure Spurs will push for the obligation, but it’s not clear whether that’s what Juventus is going for. I’d guess that’s what the active negotiations are for. It’ll never not be funny to me that Juventus are broke bois but a Vicario loan is more or less what I expected the longer this saga dragged on.

Vic is a good keeper. He’s proven that over the past few seasons at Spurs, but it’s also clear that he has notable deficiencies in his game, and a return to Italy is best for all parties. I hope that this ends up being a quick negotiating process and we’ll get a confirmation of his loan + purchase clause sooner rather than later, for everyone’s sake, including Vicario’s.