Tottenham Wants £19m Combined for Bentaleb, Pritchard

Nabil Bentaleb and Alex Pritchard won’t be leaving Tottenham any time soon if Daniel Levy wants as much money as possible from two academy graduates.

A day after Mauricio Pochettino had confirmed to reporters that the likes of Nabil Bentaleb, Federico Fazio and Alex Pritchard had no future with Tottenham, two of the three players now have a price tag for teams looking to buy some young and promising talent.

Related Story: Mauricio Pochettino Confirms Three Tottenham Players' Exits

The Independent is claiming that Daniel Levy will demand £10 million for Bentaleb and £9 million for Pritchard. But at the moment, no club is willing to meet Tottenham’s asking price, and for good reason. Because it’s more than they anyone expected.

For any buyer looking to get either player on a loan before permanently buying, that option is off the table for Spurs. As they’re only looking to sell which makes a summer exit for Nabil Bentaleb and Alex Pritchard difficult.

Now here’s why teams aren’t willing to budge despite the amount of potential that a Bentaleb or Pritchard could bring to a club.

If you were to take these two fees at face value and pay it without hesitation, then you would believe that this is how the transfer market works nowadays.

And if that’s the case, then it would make sense for Levy to charge people as much as he is doing right now.

But in actuality, there are teams who still find value at a low price. Look no further than Tottenham and Leicester City in recent seasons.

So, is Nabil Bentaleb and Alex Pritchard worth £19 million combined? Sure… if you don’t mind spending that much money. How about signing them individually? No.

Is it wise to pay that much money based on their season a year ago? Absolutely not. If it was two years ago, when they had a good season, then yes. But that was in the past.

For Bentaleb and Pritchard to come off of unspectacular campaigns in which both got injured, had minimal playing time and couldn’t get in a groove when they did play, paying £19 million is a lot of money.

But again, if some club is okay with paying that amount, then so be it.

More from Tottenham Transfer Rumours

• Tottenham’s Pierre Hojbjerg to Manchester United transfer rumour
• Tottenham transfer window state of the union
• Tottenham Hotspur sends two players out on loan
• Tottenham’s striker search continues: Brennan Johnson update
• Tottenham’s pursuit of a 21-year-old Gift heats ups

Generally, the rule of thumb when paying someone — young or old — is to base it on future projections; what they could do in the next few seasons.

Not what they did in past performances. Because that would be a mistake.

Take for example Saido Berahino’s value which was at £25 million last summer. It was that high because he had a fantastic season with 20 goals in 45 appearances in all competitions.

West Brom had every right to demand that much after seeing the 21-year-old score 11 goals in 36 appearances the year prior. They were setting his value for future seasons because they believed that he would continue to get better.

Of course no club wanted to meet that amount, which was understandable, but some got close enough. In the end, Berahino wasn’t sold.

Fast forward to this summer and after struggling for form last year with nine goals in 37 total appearances, the Baggies wanted at least £25 million once again.

His value plummeted to at least £15 million based on last season’s performances. Should a team pay West Brom’s asking price, they’re doing so based on Berahino’s numbers from two years ago, rather than what he did this past term.

Daniel Levy is doing the same thing with both Nabil Bentaleb and Alex Pritchard. The only difference is, none of their values are obnoxiously high, it’s still inflated but still a bit reasonable if a team got close enough to their current values.

Next: International Champions Cup: Tottenham 1-2 Juventus

In today’s transfer market, with transfer fees skyrocketing, it becomes a double-edged sword. Selling clubs will extract as much money as possible to ensure that they get enough back from their investment. As for buyers they will be hesitant to pay anything that is outside of their price range.

Finding that middle ground is hard but it’s still there as mentioned above with Tottenham and Leciester getting value signings in recent seasons.

With regards to how Mauricio Pochettino feels about this situation it wouldn’t be surprising if he wants Daniel Levy to lower the values of Bentaleb, Fazio and Pritchard. Because if they’re going for a high price, they won’t be able to leave Spurs since no on will sign them.