Tottenham Hotspur fans have already found their dream target for the January transfer window, and it's actually a player they are quite familiar with, since Spurs were frequently linked to him in the summer 2025 transfer market.
Bournemouth winger Antoine Semenyo was, after Bryan Mbeumo, one of the biggest breakout stars in the Premier League last season. Tottenham and other clubs were unwilling to shell out a record fee for him, as Semenyo would have cost more for Spurs than the transfer record they already set when they signed Dominic Solanke from the Cherries for 65 million pounds a couple of years ago.
But now, Semenyo heads into the January 2026 transfer window as an even more coveted commodity, because he has been arguably the second best player in the entire Premier League after only obvious Golden Boot winner Erling Haaland over at Manchester City.
It's still an open race for Tottenham
According to talkSPORT's Ben Jacobs, although it is an "open race" for Antoine Semenyo at this time with Tottenham among five elite Premier League clubs interested in the Bournemouth star, the "early frontrunners" are actually reigning champions Liverpool, which shouldn't really come as a surprise.
Although Liverpool already spent a boatload of money this past summer transfer window on Alexander Isak, Hugo Ekitike, and Florian Wirtz to stock up their front line further, they did sell star winger Luis Diaz to Bayern Munich and are watching Mohamed Salah enter the final years of his career. Semenyo is their dream replacement.
Tottenham, Manchester United, Arsenal, and Manchester City are the other elite clubs interested in Semenyo, so it's literally the entire Big Six minus Chelsea, probably because they are already smitten with Geovany Quenda and Estevao Willian.
So Spurs do have a legitimate chance at signing Semenyo, but Jacobs's report regarding Liverpool leading the race early on is a sobering reminder that Spurs have a lot of ground to cover when it comes to competing with the rest of the Big Six for elite Premier League transfer targets. After all, they already lost to Arsenal for Eberechi Eze and even Christian Norgaard this past summer, while they were nowhere close to Bryan Mbeumo despite being a better team than Manchester United.
Semenyo may be a reach, but if Spurs can make themselves more attractive in other ways, perhaps they can steal him away from the Reds. After all, they were able to land two big fish this past summer in Xavi Simons and Mohammed Kudus.