Fernando Llorente’s time at Tottenham was a mixed bag of emotions for the Spaniard.
On the one hand, the target man hardly played, his path to the first-team constantly blocked by Harry Kane, forcing him to feed off scraps of game time when the England international was either injured or rested.
On the other, if it wasn’t for him, Tottenham probably wouldn’t have reached the Champions League final last season, and his ability to disrupt tiring defences was something Mauricio Pochettino liked to have up his sleeve late on in the game.
However, after two years in north London, Gazzetta say Llorente decided enough was enough, eventually taking up an adventure with Napoli to continue his career.
Gazzetta dello Sport look at what went on behind the scenes this summer for the former Athletic Bilbao man, and they explain the breaking point in his and Tottenham’s relationship came when they offered him a ‘very reduced’ option to extend.
It’s said the idea was to allow slowly a bit of room for Troy Parrott to grow and eventually replace the Spaniard as Kane’s backup, which Llorente wasn’t keen on.
The Italian newspaper claim both the striker and his brother-agent said ‘thanks, but no thanks’, and that was the end of his time on London.
Then came a couple of phone calls from Carlo Ancelotti and Napoli’s director of football, Cristiano Giuntoli, which led to ‘love at first sight’.
While Tottenham might have offered him more money (he’s believed to be on £40k or so/week in Italy), the chance of playing under a manager of the Italian’s prestige ‘cannot be refused’.
Furthermore, the football he plays is ‘far more adapted’ to Llorente than Spurs’ was (his three goals in three games this season already confirm this) and Ancelotti plans to rotate him in and out of the squad regularly, which would have never happened in London.
All in all, a match seemingly made in heaven for all parties, except Tottenham, who now find themselves once again very light up front.
