Just a few days after rumours about Paris St Germain coming in with an offer for Dele Alli died down, Daily Mirror has reported that the midfielder has now been linked with a similar offer from Real Madrid. Transfer rumours linking star midfielder with every major club in the world is expected to be a usual occurrence from here on. The 20-year-old – labelled as a “£50m-plus player” by pundit Jamie Redknapp – has been in superb form over the last few weeks, and he has scored a whopping five goals in the last three games. His understanding with Harry Kane seems to have gone to the next level.
Spurs will face competition for their best players, but manager Mauricio Pochettino will be aware that those transfer rumours will amount to nothing if Spurs are able to push for the Champions League next season. The impressive 4-1 win over Watford briefly put the team into the top three of the Premier League before wins for Manchester City put them back into the fifth spot. Still, Pochettino will not ask his players to read too much into the league position, as the club do mean only five points behind second-placed Liverpool. Even though Chelsea have been on a 13 game winning run, Spurs have been able to keep the distance to the table leaders to only 10 points.
The interest from Madrid is not surprising considering that the Spanish club are on the lookout for star players capable of replacing the names like James Rodriguez and Isco. Both players are expected to leave the club after being unhappy at the amount of first-team opportunities being given in the regime of Zinedine Zidane. Isco, ironically, has been linked with a move to Spurs with the North London outfit seeing the Spaniard as a marquee signing who would transform the club into the elite.
Madrid are banned from signing any new players in the January transfer window. Initially, they were given a two transfer window ban, but it has been reduced to just one upon appeal. Hence, the club will be able to make signings as usual in the summer. It will be the time for the big money moves across European football.
The Spanish outfit will have reasons to be confident about signing Dele Alli considering that they have already had two major purchases from Spurs over the years in the form of Luka Modric and Gareth Bale. However, this is an entirely new Spurs outfit who are now reluctant to sell the stars. It remains to be seen if Madrid can convince Daniel Levy under this situation.
