Mauricio Pochettino is rebuilding his Tottenham squad this summer and Daniel Levy has provided him with plenty of funds to do so.
Tanguy Ndombele has already arrived in a club-record deal and Pochettino is keen to add Giovani Lo Celso to the arrivals list.
Spurs have been chasing the Argentine for most of this summer but so far they’ve been unable to agree on a deal with Real Betis. That’s because the La Liga club want a big price for the midfielder.
At the beginning of the summer, it was ‘close to’ €100m but that fell to €80m not long after that. Then it seemed they had a verbal agreement with Lo Celso that he could depart so long as they got €75m.
Estadio Deportivo update the story again today and there’s been another reduction in the asking price. They now say Betis want €70m and will accept nothing less for their star man.
The newspaper says that’s a price that Spurs are willing to pay ‘according to the news that in the last days arrive from the English capital.’
They then explain that Betis are demanding that fee because they will lose €9.6m to PSG as that was part of the original deal that brought him from France. Lo Celso is also due close to €2m, so that means Betis would end up getting €58.5m from a €70m deal. That would still represent the biggest sale in the club’s history.
All of this clearly points to Betis wanting to secure the sale. They don’t want to lose Lo Celso but at the same time, they’d prefer to get a club-record fee for him while he’s wanted.
The continued decrease in their asking price shows they’re willing to negotiate and if Tottenham get to that €70m price, they’ll get their man. Whether Daniel Levy, a man renowned for his negotiating skills, is willing to do that remains to be seen.
