Tottenham reigniting Serge Aurier flame?

Kyle Walker-Peter’s Man-of-the-Match performance for Tottenham against Newcastle on Sunday was never going to silence the rumors linking the club to a new right-back.

A quality 90 minutes of football is just that and not much much. If Kieran Trippier is to remain sidelined then Tottenham do need to be able to call upon experience when/if subsequent 90 minutes overcome Walker-Peters.

To that end, it’s hardly a surprise that rumors persist about Tottenham’s lingering interest in players previously linked with the club, such as Valencia’s João Cancelo.

One rumor popped up again on Monday evening that stood out from the rest however. French sporting magazine L’Equipe was quoted by several sources in claiming that Tottenham were in talks to bring on troubled Paris Saint Germain and Ivory Coast right-back Serge Aurier.

It was just two weeks ago that Aurier was linked with Spurs — on the same day that it seemed as if Manchester United were poised to sign him instead.

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At the time, that felt like a relief. Aurier is a special talent, and on the evidence he’s presented on the pitch for PSG he would not doubt prove an invaluable addition to most any squad.

That talent is undercut by a inexplicable reckless streak however. If he’s not posting videos of himself spitting homophobic slurs at former PSG manager Laurent Blanc and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, he’s getting into altercation with police or making over-the-top violent gestures to opponents.

As we said when the rumor first surfaced, this is not the kind of behavior that evokes the harmony that Mauricio Pochettino so cherishes in his squad. Nor does it look good for any football club to enthusiastically employ a player who utilizes such hateful speech as Aurier has in the past.

In short, Spurs might benefit from his performances on the pitch, but it’s difficult to imagine Pochettino attempting to wrangle him off of it.

All that being said, Pochettino does have a way with convincing players of his vision — and keeping them disciplined. The most drama any Tottenham player can be said to be guilty of under Pochettino’s watch tends to come in off-the-cuff interviews with the Sun, after all.

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So perhaps Pochettino will look at Aurier as a challenge, but one worth the effort to overcome. If he indeed can get the best out of the 24-year-old — should the move in fact happen — then that might rightly be considered one of his biggest achievements at the club.