Tottenham want another young French winger

Undaunted by precedent, Tottenham appear set to once again test the waters of Ligue 1 by signing a young, inexperienced winger.

This time around Tottenham are targeting OGC Nice’s Vincent Marcel, according to ESPN’s sources. The 20-year-old French under-20 international’s career thus far consists of ten appearances for Nice this past season in all competitions, only four of which were starts.

That sentence represents just about all we know for certain about young Vincent, unfortunately. He appears to be the product of Nice’s youth system, which might be notable to Spurs fans as one of the two clubs that helped nurture a young Hugo Lloris.

Now, before we get to the boiler plate critique here, it’s worth noting a couple key points.

One: we are, of course, not privy to what metrics and data Tottenham’s scouting department might have. It could be that their tendrils stretch deep into Ligue 1 academies, and they have had their eye on Marcel for some time.

Two: he might be really good. With so little publicly available data to sort through, we simply don’t have a lot to go on when we do what we’re going to do below regardless.

And finally, three: as of right now, this is just an unconfirmed rumor of the opening forays into what might one day become a real transfer. Tottenham probably sounds out clubs about players on the regular, with such actions only occasionally bubbling to the surface.

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So then, with those disclaimers out of the way, what can we make of this story?

Well, first we can look toward the recent past for similar transactions. Spurs pursued and eventually acquired Lyon winger Clinton Njie late in the summer of 2015, then spent a good amount of time and effort to sign Georges-Kévin Nkoudou from Olympique de Marseille last summer.

Both of those players were young Francophones with at least one season playing semi-regularly in Ligue 1.

Njie enjoyed 15 starts and 15 substitute appearances for Lyon in his final season there, during which he managed to notch seven goals and seven assists.

Nkoudou featured prominently for Nantes and Marseille, though was never quite the goal-getter Njie was at Lyon.

Despite a decent amount of promise, neither player made a good impression in their first seasons with Tottenham. Indeed, Njie was shipped off on loan to Marseille when Nkoudou arrived, and the latter now finds himself on the outs after brazenly wearing a Chelsea kit in an Instagram post.

So then, we can see a a potentially troubling pattern developing here that might be extended to the rumored interest in Marcel. Spurs spend a chunk of the summer negotiating for a young winger/forward from Ligue 1 to fill a crucial void in Mauricio Pochettino’s set-up, only to find that the player doesn’t quite live up to expectations.

Long before Marcel was linked with Spurs, this pattern was long in danger of becoming a trope. Yes, the club did need to recruit a viable option to deploy in wide areas. But no, going back to the Ligue 1 well for yet another unproven player didn’t seem like it would work any better than it had the past two seasons.

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For all we know, however, Marcel might be intended for development rather than a first team spot. Spurs should invest in youth to augment an already impressive list of players coming through the Academy. That doesn’t mean that the club can stop looking for more mature players to fill that void in the immediate future though.