Last week talks broke down between Tottenham and Espanyol for the permanent transfer of Pau Lopez. Tottenham had a €7m buying option for the goalkeeper they had on loan last season, but it seems they were never going to use that, and Espanyol have been naive.
Tottenham have a reputation around Europe for being tough on transfers, with Daniel Levy often pushed forward as the pantomime villain, so Espanyol should have seen it coming. But that it was Mauricio Pochettino and Toni Jimenez, both formerly of Espanyol, asking for the loan must have given a false sense of trust.
Espanyol have been offered €2m by Tottenham, and a percentage of a future sale. Catalan newspaper Sport say Spurs haven’t increased their offer ‘one iota’ in the past month, with Levy piling on the pressure by just letting time slip away.
Pau’s contract with Espanyol runs out in June 2018, and he’s not eager to renew, given 
he’s already been replaced by Diego Lopez. If Espanyol had known last summer what they do now, they’d have almost certainly secured an extension before loaning the Spanish U21 to Tottenham in the first place.
Sport call it a ‘poker game’ and a ‘soap opera’, with Espanyol now pressured to consider the low Tottenham offer, or risk losing Pau for nothing in a year.
