Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino has said that his club won’t be making any additions this January transfer window. How boring, right? Although it’s not too unexpected a development given how Spurs, in the summer, literally became the first club in transfer window history to do no business at all.
While there may be no additions to White Hart Lane this winter, one subtraction is already on the books, with more to potentially to come. It was made official early this morning that Mousa Dembele is off to the Chinese Super League, and it’s a transfer that has a lot of people talking.
BREAKING: Sky sources: @SpursOfficial have accepted an offer in the region of £9m from Beijing Sinobo Guoan for Mousa Dembele. #SSN pic.twitter.com/k2z29xFrB3
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) January 8, 2019
Given how much Chinese Super League clubs have been spending on player acquisition recently, many football observers are surprised that the Dembele transfer fee was only £9 million; or as reported by other outlets, £11 million.
Not sure who is right on this as clubs don’t typically officially disclose the amount.
Mousa Dembélé set to leave Tottenham for Beijing Guoan in £11m move. By @DaveHytner https://t.co/IpaqxGkeG6
— Guardian sport (@guardian_sport) January 8, 2019
While Dembele is no all-world superstar by any means, that amount is certainly a bargain for a player of his quality; especially in this day and age.
https://twitter.com/niallmoran_/status/1082683201259220994
As reported elsewhere, Mousa Dembele is expected to join Beijing Guoan from Tottenham for £11m in the next few days. Good money for a player with 6 months on his contract.
— Matt Law (@Matt_Law_DT) January 8, 2019
Elsewhere Fernando Llorente is coming off a hat trick in the FA Cup third round rout of Tranmere. He’s also wanted by Athletic Bilbao, who are not being coy at all in regards to what players are on their radar this transfer window. New Athletic Bilbao sporting director Rafa Alkorta listed out his club’s transfer targets during a media interview.
“We are interested in Javi Martinez, Ibai Gomez, Ander Herrera, Fernando Llorente…all of them interest us,” Alkorta said Cadena SER.
“It’s obvious that any player that can play for Athletic is of interest to us. Nothing is easy but we are interested in having all of the ones that can come.”
“We have not made any moves yet. We will start on Tuesday and we will see what can be done.”
The club’s transfer policy is to only sign players born in the Basque country, or to have come up the ranks through a club in the Basque region.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
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