When José Mourinho was without a job between getting sacked by Manchester United and being appointed as Mauricio Pochettino’s replacement at Tottenham, the Portuguese manager was spotted at a couple of Lille games.
His close relationship with Luis Campos will have had a lot to do with that, but it appears that during said voyages, someone caught the Special One’s eye.
That man is Zeki Çelik, who currently is the starting right-back at the French club and has impressed ever since he arrived from Istanbulspor in 2018 for a fee of £2.25m.
The 23-year-old had made 32 appearances in all competitions this season under Christophe Galtier, picking up three assists along the way, and with his position an area that needs reinforcing at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the interest makes sense.
According to Le Foot, Mourinho ‘wants to bring’ Çelik to Spurs next season, who never replaced Kieran Trippier last summer and sent Kyle Walker-Peters to Southampton in January.
That left Serge Aurier as the only natural right-back at the club, and while the Ivorian has had his moments, he still needs to have someone else there to rotate with.
There’s no other information about this potential deal, like a fee or if the Turkey international would be interested in the move, but if previous recent Lille exits are anything to go by, they certainly won’t roll over for a measly fee, regardless of how well Campos and Mourinho know each other.
