The Saido Berahino to Spurs Rumor is Back

Guess who’s back? It’s Saido Berahino! And it seems that Spurs’ manager, Mauricio Pochettino, is still interested in the striker.

Once a summer target of four bids, the last reaching as high as £22 million, but just short of West Bromwich Albion’s preferred valuation of £25 million set by Baggies’ chairman, Jeremy Peace. Spurs are set to offer perhaps their final offer and it is considerably lower than West Brom might want.

With Berahino making 19 appearances and scoring four goals this season in all competitions (not including his two appearances, two goals and one assist in the Under-21 Premier League), it’s easy to see why Saido Berahino’s value has dropped in Spurs’ eyes. Even though Daniel Levy decided to increase Andros Townsend’s value when the English winger has done less this term.

Still, minus the fact that Levy found a way to get more money back with the sale of Townsend to Newcastle — £12 million in return, this is mostly about Saido Berahino instead. And according to the Daily Mail, Spurs are set to offer their fifth and final bid to sign the Baggies’ out-of-form 22-year-old striker for just £17 million.

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It’s not known where the money would be coming from, but it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that the money Tottenham got from the sale of Andros Townsend could be used plus an extra £5 million to see if West Brom are still interested in doing business or not.

Now a good reason why Jeremy Peace refused Spurs’ fourth offer of £22 million was because it was too incentive-heavy. Meaning, that Tottenham would pay in installments, likely four or five yearly installments (£5.5 million-a-year) to complete the full transfer.

And as low as it sounded, Daniel Levy was quick to point out teams tend to do this when there’s a very big transfer fee involved of at least £20-plus million. For example, Real Madrid allegedly are still paying for Gareth Bale’s transfer when Football Leaks leaked details of the transaction between Real Madrid and Tottenham.

But looking back at Spurs’ latest bid. While £17 million is obviously lower than Spurs were offering in the summer, this time around according to the Daily Mail article linked above, there’s more money being paid up front.

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Whether that’s enough remains to be seen. But it’s safe to say that Jeremy Peace only has a few options left to take right now and it was obvious that he lost his battle with Daniel Levy and Spurs in the summer when they could have pocketed an easy £22 million.

So, either West Brom accepts more money up front now even if it’s only £17 million, but could be paid in full as soon as this deal is completed. Or, the Baggies can hang onto Saido Berahino and continue to see him not contribute much this season despite getting a decent amount of appearances.

As for Spurs, they have the upper hand in this deal even though West Brom has a player that they want. In the meantime, while this fifth offer is being considered, Tottenham must figure out what to do with Fulham and another striker that they’re interested in.

Next: Spurs Cash in on Andros Townsend

Hotspur HQ editor, Ryan Wrenn, has recently taken a look about Fulham nixing Tottenham’s pursuit of Moussa Dembélé. But all is not lost just yet. Because all Spurs have to do is make sure that the Frenchman is loaned back to the Championship club to finish the season so that they stay above the relegation zone. Where they currently sit in 19th place out of 24 teams.

While it would be better to keep the 19-year-old French international permanently and not do a buy-and-loan-back type of transaction, the recent form of Nacer Chadli and Son Heung-min has to be encouraging enough to complete a £6 million move. If both moves end up failing then the only other routes are signing a player from the lower leagues and promote a striker from the academy.