We might be wrong, but as far as we can see, we’ve come across one of the first ghost transfer stories to appear in 2019: that of Tottenham’s alleged interest in Aissa Mandi.
Various reports, both in Algeria and England, claim that El Desmarque were reporting that Mauricio Pochettino and his team were keen on the Real Betis centre-back to replace Toby Alderweireld, but we can’t find the source.
A search on the Spanish website brings up nothing new (other than Arsenal’s reported interest from the end of January), and a social media scouring session hasn’t provided any answers either.
Every outlet linking back to El Desmarque in their own articles send us straight back to the front page, which is of no use at all.
Nothing of note has been picked up in Spain (the only one being Estadio Deportivo sending us to Le Buteur, who have OneFootball as a source, citing El Desmarque with no link to anything), and a Google search of Spanish websites suggests nothing of the sort has been published recently.
In the grand scheme of things, Tottenham being interested in Mandi would make sense, especially with Toby Alderweireld potentially leaving for £25m and the Algerian available at €30m (release clause), but it appears that, for now, there’s nothing to it.
We might be wrong, and we might have missed something, but we like to think we’re pretty good at uncovering where a story has come from.
However, this time, we’re completely stumped, so if you find something, please let us know, and we’ll strive to clarify the situation.
