The price of the brick keeps going up. According to the Times of London, Tottenham Hotspur’s pursuit of Brazilian winger Savinho could cost them as much as £85m. This particular transfer saga has now gone on for a year after Spurs expressed their interest and came close to signing Savinho last summer before City pulled the plug on negotiations.
The new £85m figure comes as almost a throwaway line in an article about City’s overall transfer business and their continued attempt to refresh the squad under new head coach Enzo Maresco.
City are in talks with Tottenham Hotspur over the potential sale of Savinho for £85million while Nico González’s situation is being monitored by several interested parties. The club also lost two of their top earners over the summer after Bernardo Silva and John Stones left for Real Madrid and Inter Milan respectively on free transfers.
I swear I can remember a time when the price for Savinho was rumored to be around £60m-65m. The delay in coming to an agreement appears to be mostly on the City side of negotiations — there are reports that Maresca has been delaying deciding whether Savinho is in his plans or not; meanwhile it’s been clear for a while now that Savinho is of great interest to Spurs and is one of Roberto De Zerbi’s top transfer targets, which no doubt has inflated the price. (This is why you don’t tip your hand in negotiations.)
Meanwhile, rarely has a player made it so clear that he wants to leave and join Tottenham Hotspur. His social media has included commenting on and befriending numerous Spurs player accounts, and he’s refused to train a couple of times now (though City has attributed this, plus his absence from the Community Shield squad, as “illness).
Do I think this transfer will eventually get done? Yes, probably. Will it get done in time for Brentford? Almost certainly not — Spurs will need to register their players by Wednesday in order to have them available to play in the season opener on Saturday, and even if a deal gets done today that only leaves 2-3 days of training before traveling to the Gtech Stadium.
It’s looking more and more like Tottenham’s forward line on Saturday will include Mathys Tel, Richarlison, and Mikey Moore.