Tottenham Hotspur are going to be one of the most active shoppers in the January transfer window for a star winger, and their need for a high impact player on the wings will only increase once Brennan Johnson makes his way to a lower level Premier League club where he can get more regular minutes.
Spurs are lacking goals on the wings, which Johnson did help with, but they are also lacking in all around quality and dynamism - of which Johnson was part of the problem. Most specifically, Tottenham need help on the left wing, and while they have several potential stars of the future in Mathys Tel, Wilson Odobert, and loanee Mikey Moore, they could use more talent.
Ideally, Spurs would sign a goal scoring left winger who is ready to be a star at the Premier League level, but the only valid option to do that, Antoine Semenyo, already rejected Spurs and is pretty much a lock to join Manchester City.
A better deal than expected
So the next best left wing option when combining quality, skill set, future value, and price is Yan Diomande of RB Leipzig. But on that last point, the price, there have been rumblings that the Ivorian could cost 100 million euros.
However, according to new information from Sky Sports reporter Danyal Khan, Yan Diomande is actually expected to cost a fair bit less than that. Per Sky, Diomande is valued by Leipzig at around 60-70 million euros and not 100 million euros, meaning Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, or any other top club interested in the Ivorian AFCON standout could sign him for 40 million euros cheaper than what was initially quoted.
Now, if Diomande keeps having big performances in widely viewed games like his hat trick for RB Leipzig against Eintracht Frankfurt or any of his displays for the Ivory Coast, then Leipzig can get something closer to the 70 million euro price point than 60.
But the 100 million euro figure looks like the classic tactic of a club floating an inflated figure out there to start the window of transfer dicussions at a higher level as a bargaining tactic. Sometimes, agents even do this to inflate the value of their players.
Diomande is a gem and has all the tools to be a world class winger, and it is better for a club like Tottenham to get in the door early than have it slammed shut entirely. For example, they will not want to make the same mistake they did with Desire Doue.