Tottenham are close to shutting the door for any of the first team players leaving the club in the January transfer window. The club recently sold midfielder Tom Carroll to Swansea City in a deal worth around £ 4.5 million. And now, it is understood that this will be the last instance of a first-team member leaving the squad in January, as Sky Sports have claimed on their transfer centre blog on Wednesday (5.22pm).
Manager Mauricio Pochettino is reportedly concerned about the lack of squad strength with games looming in three different competitions. Apart from being involved in the Premier League title race, Spurs will also have to concentrate on the FA Cup and the Europa League.
The squad size has been brought down to 24 players following the exit of Carroll. Now, there is transfer interest on two more players who have been unable to get regular first-team football at White Hart Lane. Defender Kevin Wimmer seems to be one of them with his agent recently confirming that there has been a lot of interest on the Austrian with even his former club FC Cologne interested in taking him. Wimmer has not been a first-team regular due to the incredible centre back pairing of Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld.
Now, Wimmer may get a good run out in the first team with Vertonghen suffering a serious injury, which may keep him out of action until the end of March.
Crystal Palace have recently entered into the race for Welsh international Ben Davies (The Sun). The 23-year-old has never been a first-team regular at White Hart Lane since coming to the club in the summer of 2014. In order to sustain his prospects at the international level, the defender was contemplating the idea of playing for a different team. Crystal Palace boss Sam Allardyce was keen on taking him for around £10 million after being rebuffed in his advances for Sunderland defender Patrick van Aanholt.
Pochettino likes to work with a squad of 22 outfield players, but it has now been reduced to 21. The remaining three spots have been taken up by goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, Michel Vorm, and Pau Lopez. Another departure would be catastrophic for the team, as the manager would be unable to even rotate the team in order to keep them fresh between the games. One of the major reasons for Tottenham’s dip in form midway through the first of the campaign was the inability to handle Champions League and Premier League games at the same time.
In order to avoid a similar situation, it seems that Spurs have put an end to the departures. Pochettino will be hoping that his current squad size will be able to handle the rigours of what is turning out to be a 60 game season for Spurs.
