Lille are expecting to lose star goalkeeper Mike Maignan sooner rather than later, with La Voix du Nord claiming that the Ligue 1 outfit have already signed a replacement for the Tottenham Hotspur target.
A man who PSG must regret letting go with every stunning reflex stop is not the first nor the last Lille star to be linked with a move to north London in recent months.
Jose Mourinho has already raided Les Dogues for assistant coach Joao Sacramento and goalkeeping coach Nuno Santos.
Since the turn of the year, Boubakary Soumare, Victor Osimhen, Zeki Celik and more have been tipped to embark on an identical path and join a Premier League giant too.
And, when you consider that Hugo Lloris’s best days may now be consigned to the past at the age of 33 – with mistakes creeping ever more regularly into his game – it seemed only a matter of time before Tottenham turned to Lille for a new goalkeeper.
La Voix du Nord claims that Maignan has been lined up as Lloris’s successor, with the one-time Paris Saint-Germain youngster looking every inch the replacement for a World Cup winning captain at both club and international level.
Lille are used to seeing their star players leave on an annual basis, from Eden Hazard to Nicolas Pepe, Gervinho to Rafael Leao, and it should be no surprise to learn that they are prepared for a worst-case scenario.
The report adds that Lille signed Leo Jardim (the Brazilian shot-stopper, not the ex-Monaco coach) last summer in the event that £18 million-rated Maignan would be on his way out of the door.
Long-term planning, it seems, is one of Lille’s strengths.
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