Well, Pape Matar Sarr is now officially a Tottenham Hotspur player.
Spurs confirmed on Friday that they had signed the player in what is reportedly a £15.4 million deal, according to The Athletic.
Sarr won’t play for Tottenham this season because he has been loaned back to Metz immediately.
But this is still a blinder of a deal by Fabio Paratici in North London.
Top business
It’s a fine piece of business for a number of reasons.
Firstly, Tottenham beat out a number of Premier League clubs to sign the 18-year-old defensive midfielder [The Athletic], who has been tipped for a very bright future.
Secondly, the French club are paying every cent of his wages throughout the 2021-22 campaign, which is another example of the Italian managing director’s savviness in matters such as these.
Still only being 18, Sarr is nowhere near the finished article, but a full season in Ligue 1, playing every week, will see him arrive at Hotspur Way as a much more rounded player.
Contributing to his wage packet wouldn’t have been that surprising had it been part of the deal, but the fact Tottenham won’t even begin paying him until next season is a reminder of Paratici’s savviness on matters like these.
And finally, £15.4 million is absolutely peanuts.
If Sarr becomes the sort of player that he’s expected to, this will go down as a colossal bargain by the Lilywhites.
It’s pretty much half what Tottenham paid to sign Moussa Sissoko in 2016 and at 18, the Senegalese midfielder’s ceiling is just frighteningly high.
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