Tottenham Hotspur face potentially losing a £60 million player next year, with the man in question now prepared to leave Spurs next year after pulling a transfer U-turn.
Tottenham face Rangers as Ange Postecoglou deals with injury crisis
The north Londoners travel to play Rangers at Ibrox in the Europa League this evening, as manager Ange Postecoglou travels back up north for a Glasgow reunion with fierce old rivals from his time at Celtic.
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Defender in January talks to join Tottenham with van de Ven and Romero out
The Lilywhites are in urgent need of a new defender.
Spurs’ head coach prepares for what will be a tense, atmospheric occasion against Rangers under mounting pressure, with reports this week having to clarify Tottenham’s stance on sacking Postecoglou amid a disappointing run of form.
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Tottenham’s next five Premier League games |
Date |
|---|---|
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Southampton vs Tottenham |
December 15 |
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Tottenham vs Liverpool |
December 22 |
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Nottingham Forest vs Tottenham |
December 26 |
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Tottenham vs Wolves |
December 29 |
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Tottenham vs Newcastle |
January 4 |
Chairman Daniel Levy is apparently prepared to give the Australian more time to turn things around at N17, factoring in the club’s mounting injury problems, with both Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero suffering new injuries and returning to the sidelines after briefly coming back against Chelsea.
Van de Ven and Romero join Mikey Moore, Ben Davies, Guglielmo Vicario, Wilson Odobert and Richarlison as just some of the key first-team players unavailable through injury, while both Yves Bissouma and Rodrigo Bentancur are serving domestic suspensions right now.
Rangers has been described as a “must-not-lose” for Postecoglou, with GiveMeSport also reporting that Tottenham’s next four games will greatly determine whether they go down the Postecoglou sack route.
Ahead of their visit to Scotland, and with just one senior centre-back available in Radu Dragusin, Postecoglou has suggested that summer signing Archie Gray could be a regular at centre-half.
“I have to get creative,” said Postecoglou on using Gray as a centre-back.
“I think Archie’s probably the one for us at the moment that we need to try and get to fill in there. He’s done right back, left back for us. Had to play at centre-back a little bit this year, he did during the pre-season. With him and Radu, they’re the two main sort of defenders. We’ve still got five or six games to navigate, so we may have to get creative at some point and deal with it in a different way.”
In the meantime, some players are considering their futures ahead of next year, with injured forward Richarlison apparently among them.
Richarlison prepared to leave Tottenham after transfer U-turn
The “fantastic” Brazilian, who cost £60 million to sign from Everton in 2022, is rumoured to have turned down offers from Saudi Arabia earlier this year in favour of challenging for a place at Spurs.
He was apparently determined to remain at Hotspur Way, but now reliable journalist Ben Jacobs claims that Richarlison is willing to leave Tottenham after changing his mind behind-the-scenes.
“The situation with Richarlison, the player was absolutely adamant last summer that he wanted to fight for his place at Spurs and we were all pleased to see him happy, most of us wanted it to work at Spurs, and Richarlison to be that £60m player and thrive,” said Jacobs on NUFC Matters.
“But now, I’m told the player has changed his mind in the last few months, and he’s willing to leave Spurs in 2025.”
The 27-year-old enjoyed a mid-season purple patch this time last year, scoring goals galore for Postecoglou, and the 59-year-old will be hoping he can at least rediscover that kind of form before the number nine potentially departs.
