Who’ll Be Next To Be Welcomed To Tottenham Next Season?

At the first home game of every season there is the ritual of welcoming new players to the club. Paulinho will be first in the line-up but who will be joining him to receive a warm White Hart Lane welcome next month?

[Photo: Jav The_DoC_66]The Confederations Cup is over and the news has broken quickly that Paulinho will be signing for Tottenham in the coming days. Paulinho’s comment on the transfer were relayed on Twitter as they happened.

Paulinho [Photo: Alan Hill]Next on the Tottenham wish-list is the Spanish striker, David Villa.

David Villa from Barcelona

Weekend reports stated that David Villa is thought to have a choice of joining Spurs or Fiorentina. Some sources suggest that he has opted for north London. Villa would provide a short-term solution to Spurs’ lack of an instinctive, natural goalscorer. His experience would benefit those around him and having played at the highest level for Barcelona  and with Spain internationally, he would not find the Premier League a daunting prospect.

The Independent is now reporting that Villa has “virtually agreed” personal terms on a deal for a fee of £8.5m.

As the Paulinho news broke on Twitter, so came news to back up the story in the Independent with a tweet saying that Villa had agreed to a move to Tottenham.
https://twitter.com/Adam79Suter/status/351792634882301952

Two Young Croatian Players

News broke yesterday of Tottenham investing for the future in two young Croatian players from Dinamo Zagreb. The two 17-year-olds are Tin Jedvaj and Alen Halilovic who came through the same youth academy as former Tottenham players Vedran Corluka, Luka Modric and Nico Kranjcar.

• Jedvaj is a central defender and it is thought he would join Tottenham this summer. He made his debut for Zagreb last season and played 18 games, scoring one goal.

• Halililovic is a midfield player and he just turned seventeen last month. He made his Zagreb debut in September and was the youngest player to appear for the club. The following week he scored his first goal and in total made 18 appearances and scored twice. It is thought that he would return to Zagreb on loan.

They both look exciting prospects and have been called up to the Croatian national team with Halilovic having made his debut in a friendly against Portugal last month. The deal which is reported to be costing Spurs £20m has not been completed. A Zagreb director speaking of Halilovic said,

"“A lot of people have compared him to Luka Modric, but he’s better than Luka was at this age.”"

The video shows the confidence of Halilovic in front of goal and the directness of his play.

These would be exciting players for Tottenham to sign but it is a considerable amount of money to invest in such young players.

Damiao from Internacional

At the end of the season, it appeared that Tottenham were about to renew their interest in signing Leandro Damiao from Internacional in Brazil. For the past number of transfer windows he has been Spurs number 1 target but a deal never materialised with last minute problems preventing the completion of the negotiations. This reported early interest has waned to nil and at the weekend, it was Southampton who were linked with Damiao although the Internacional President has denied there have been any bids for the player.

At present it seems unlikely that Spurs will be pursuing that deal.