Although the Tottenham Hotspur rumour mill has somewhat slowed down since the closure of the January transfer window, there are some links that aren’t going away and with claims that our scouts were in attendance at the recent Benfica v Dinamo Zagreb Europa League clash, plenty of outlets have taken the chance to link us with Joao Felix again.
The original scout claim came from the Mirror who stated that scouts from seven other Premier League sides were also in the ground with us and they leaned towards the 19-year-old talent and again repeated he had a circa £80million price tag.
With that seeming unlikely for Spurs at that price given our more usual approach to transfers, a follow up report from A Bola (via SportWitness) on Saturday, offered an alternative suggestion.
They link us with having eyes on Joao Pedro Neves Filipe – or Jota. I’ve never heard of him before, but I don’t follow Portuguese football, but he’s said to be a 19-year-old versatile forward who can operate anywhere across the front three.
Predominantly a B team player for Benfica, he has got first team involvement as they continue to develop him but the suggestion is he only has a 30million Euro buyout and it’s expected he will soon be worth far more than that.
Given our more usual approach to transfers and thinking of the future, if there was a specific reason we were at the game, I would imagine it’s far more likely this was the lad we were looking at as opposed to Felix.