Tottenham Hotspur center midfielder Lucas Bergvall is still one of the big lingering topics of the summer transfer window for Spurs after he submitted a transfer request to the club even before they officially purchased Mateus Fernandes and Sandro Tonali to overhaul Roberto De Zerbi's midfield.
Fernandes and Tonali are huge 85 and 100 million pound investments, respectively, and that leaves the rest of the players fighting for minutes behind them. Whlie De Zerbi and Spurs are trying to convince Bergvall to stay and maintain that there will be plenty of minutes for everyone, Bergvall remains unconvinced with Nottingham Forest and Newcastle still in the picture as potential transfer destinations.
But what's interesting is that after Tottenham's 1-1 win over Sydney FC on penalties in the friendly tour this summer, Spurs manager Roberto De Zerbi basically denied that Bergvall had ever submitted a transfer request, even though it is common knowledge that he did from top insiders in England, with De Zerbi often talking about Bergvall's future in direct and indirect ways since.
Did Lucas Bergvall really ask to leave?
De Zerbi said, "No, never", via Hotspur Lane, when asked directly by the press if the Swedish center midfielder ever formally asked to leave Tottenham Hotspur this summer transfer window.
This is probably just a case of De Zerbi covering for Lucas Bergvall, but there is now that seed of doubt about the rumors in the media, even if they came from sources as reliable as David Ornstein of The Athletic and Fabrizio Romano.
What may also be likely is that Bergvall did submit that transfer request to Spurs a month ago during the World Cup and the Lilywhites are trying their best to deny it publicly or draw too much attention to the exit because they are still actively working on trying to get Bergvall to stay.
As De Zerbi has been saying, though, the ball is in Bergvall's court, and if he does not buy into the project or gets too pig headed about his own minutes instead of fighting to help the team, then Tottenham are going to get rid of him with no regrets.
And though Bergvall is right that Thomas Frank and the club did not appropriately value him or play to his role last season, it is also true that he stunk when he did play and did not make the most of his opportunities either for Tottenham or for Sweden this summer.
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