French side Marseille to trigger buy option for Tottenham loanee Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg
Tottenham Hotspur boss Ange Postecoglou oversaw a huge turnover in players over the summer transfer window.
After guiding Spurs to a Europa League spot in his first season at N17, the past summer window presented the Greek-Australian tactician with the opportunity to improve his squad. Over the course of the summer, Daniel Levy and the group sanctioned 16 departures across a variety of means including sales, loan deals and releases.
One player who was allowed to depart the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on loan was Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg. He joined Ligue 1 side Marseille on an initial loan deal for the 2024/25 season with an option to make the move permanent for a fee of around £17m.
The Denmark international has adapted to the demands of Ligue 1 like a duck to water and impressed for Marseille in a short period. He has become a mainstay in new boss Roberto de Zerbi’s first XI, helping his team climb to third in the Ligue 1 table.
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Following a strong start to life at Stade Velodrome, Marseille sporting director Mehdi Benatia has confirmed the club will sign Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg permanently from Spurs.
“Pierre has signed a loan agreement with an option to buy, so the move will soon become permanent,” Benatia told Danish sports magazine Tipsbladet (h/t The Standard).
“Pierre will help us with our project to qualify for the Champions League. We need to be part of the top 24 European clubs, which are the ones that qualify for last 16 in the new Champions League format.
“We are very happy to have Pierre-Emile here in Marseille. Before his change, we had many talks with him and our president Pablo Longoria. Pierre told me he had offers from Italy, England and other countries, but that if we could do a deal with Tottenham, it was Marseille he wanted to play for.”
Hojbjerg is a real leader on and off the pitch and his influence is certainly rubbing off on his teammates at Marseille. He has quickly become an indispensable figure to De Zerbi, whose side have played some fantastic stuff so far this season and rightly find themselves third in the Ligue 1 standings.
The 29-year-old, who had arrived at Spurs from Southampton back in 2020, made 39 appearances across all competitions last season but only 10 of those were starts as Big Ange preferred Pape Matar Sarr and Yves Bissouma as a pair in the middle of the park. As a result, the Dane was seemingly surplus to requirements for Big Ange heading into this season.
That said, it is great to see Hojbjerg quickly becoming a crucial cog in the Marseille side. The fans, De Zerbi, Benatia and the club officials appear extremely happy with the central midfielder’s impact and contributions on the pitch.
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All in all, Benatia confirming the French club’s intentions to sign Hojbjerg permanently is fantastic news for Spurs as he had entered the final year of his contract (Transfermarkt), thus, aiding Big Ange’s plans of rebuilding his squad.
