Tottenham would be foolish to spend £30m on Southampton’s Alex McCarthy

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Tottenham Hotspur are the latest Premier League club to show an interest in Southampton goalkeeper Alex McCarthy.

It’s hard to believe Alex McCarthy wasn’t even Southampton’s number one until a few months ago.

But since replacing Fraser Forster between the sticks midway through last season, the former Reading and Crystal Palace goalkeeper hasn’t looked back. McCarthy was inspirational as Southampton narrowly avoided the drop – and is now one of the most in-demand shot-stoppers in England.

Arsenal, Liverpool and Wolves have been linked but Tottenham Hotspur have now emerged as another potential destination for McCarthy this summer.

The Mirror state that the 28-year-old has been lined up by Spurs as a back-up to Hugo Lloris and a replacement for Michel Vorm, the long-standing number two who is set to depart this summer when his contract runs out.

But despite the fact that McCarthy has just one year left on his contract, Southampton won’t let him leave on the cheap.

The Saints are desperate to shed that ‘selling club’ label and, perhaps because they know how important McCarthy is to their side, TEAMtalk claimed that it would take an offer of around £30 million to convince them to sell.

And with Spurs keen to reinforce a number of other positions, such as centre-half, left-back, defensive midfield and centre-forward all on a rather limited budget, it makes very little sense to splash out such a huge fee on a player whose game time would likely come in cup clashes rather than the big-game encounters.

In short, there are cheaper back-up goalkeepers out there.