It also has to be said that a few Spurs fans responded to his performances at the Euros by saying that would be what he would look like if he signed for us: flashes of quality, but usually 30-40 yards away from where they'd be of any use to us
Remember how we signed Gil and Gollini earlier this week? Because there's plenty of people in the replies for all the club's tweets who apparently missed this...
€50m guaranteed, that’s a very good price for a 23 year old defender. If Atalanta reject that then I won’t blame the club if they move on to other targets. Can’t keep upping our offer and then seeing Atalanta raise the price.
So we’re bidding €5m (£4.2m) under his buy out clause, apparently. we’re prepared to stump up a whopping €50m (!!!) which clearly shows we are prepared to spend big money, but have dragged this out over the remaining 10%.
Spurs' history with Sanchez in particular is a cautionary tale of trying to buy a top defender. But it's fair to call Romero an established star, while Sanchez was considered a very promising young player. The most sensible thing would be IMO to spend the extra money to get the deal done. The next most sensible choice (which doesn't seem to be on) would be to buy a comparable player, a Skriniar, for example, for the same money. After that, it's buy a promising young defender for half the money. Then it's spend the money elsewhere (Striker and RB are glaring needs) and hope young players will come through. If not, see who's available next window. What makes no sense to me at all is to buy an average defender like Tomiyasu for half the money. Chances are it will be a year later, and Spurs will still need at least one top class defender to have a chance to compete for big prizes, and 20-25 million will have been spent on a player who's only a minor upgrade to Sanchez and Ben Davies.
How do you figure that? He can’t have a buyout clause yet anyway because he hasn’t even signed from Juve to Atalanta yet.
Do you want us to go in and just let them name their price? If we have a reputation for rolling over in the negotiations then we'll be mugged off every time.
Tomiyasu looks very promising too, from all accounts. Versatile, two footed, good on the ball, tall, athletic and he's still only 22. I hope we sign him in addition to whoever else we bring in at centre-half, as he can provide cover and competition in two areas where we've badly struggled. I'd prefer us to move on virtually all of our other centre-halves before Sanchez, except maybe Rodon. I think he can do well alongside a steadier player in a more attacking lineup. He's still relatively young for a centre-back and his pace and physicality are useful when we play a high line. Mourinho's style of football didn't suit him at all and exposed his weaknesses badly.
Atalanta have clearly been upping the price, especially since Barca got involved with their petty offer. This isn’t Levy penny pinching or anything like that, this is us seemingly meeting an asking price only for it to continue changing. As Hudd also said, Romero can’t even have a buy clause as he’s still not officially an Atalanta player.
Yeah from what I’ve read of Tomiyasu he seems a really good prospect and like I said earlier in the window, if Atalanta are also interested in him then that’s a good sign as they’re basically the Leicester of Serie A at the moment in terms of making really smart buys. I’d happily sell Sanchez though, mainly because he still holds decent value yet wouldn’t really be missed. There’s rumours of interest from Spain and Italy and we might be just be able to claw back about £25m-£30m for him if we’re lucky which could hopefully be put to good use for any new signings.
Apparently the Sassuolo CEO has said that along with Juve, another English club outside of Arsenal has made an offer for Locatelli and some are speculating it could be us. Thought he looked brilliant at the Euros in the first couple of games until Mancini brought Veratti back into the side after he recovered from injury. Doubt this will happen though, sounds like his heart is set on Juve.
Spurs and Atalanta have agreed the fee but the deal won't go through yet. The Italians want to sign Demiral from Juventus first and then they'll complete it. Romero has agreed a contract until 2026. We'll see.