If Tottenham Hotspur are going to have a good transfer window, Daniel Levy will need to be a bit more creative and efficient than he normally is.
Spurs took out a £200 million loan last month to protect themselves against financial problems incurred by the global health crisis.
In a nutshell, Tottenham, who will miss the Champions League revenue next season, don’t have a huge amount of money to spend on new players.
Therefore, it’s back to bargain hunting for the club that smashed their transfer record to sign £63 million Tanguy Ndombele last summer but, if one rumour is true, Levy could pull off a serious coup in the form of a swap deal.
According to Calciomercato, the North Londoners could give Erik Lamela to Inter Milan in exchange for Ivan Perisic. Lamela is three years younger and is coming into the prime of his career, whereas Perisic is 31 and will only have a handful of effective seasons left in him. Still, this would be a deadly deal for Tottenham.
That’s because Perisic – on loan at Bayern Munich last season – is simply the better, more productive and more creative winger than Lamela.
There’s only been one more creative player in the whole Champions League this season than Perisic, who averages 4.3 chances per 90 minutes – Toni Kroos, with 4.4, is top of the pile there.
If you’re Harry Kane, you want Perisic playing on the flank more than you want the Argentina international.
For goals and assists, the Croat has six and 10 from 31 games for the German giants this season. Lamela has four goals and six assists from 35.
Lamela has a big fan in Mauricio Pochettino, who valued his industry and his off-the-ball work, but the reality is that he’s an attacking player who has 16 goals, 23 assists in 154 Premier League outings.
It isn’t good enough and if Levy can swap him for Perisic – whom Mourinho raved about in 2018 – it’ll prove to be a wonderful piece of business by Levy in such difficult times.
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