According to the Evening Standard, Tottenham have been dealt a blow in their bid to sell Serge Aurier this summer, with AC Milan weighing up a £13m bid that is £9m short of how much Daniel Levy wants. Jose Mourinho is ‘willing’ to sell Aurier and will use the money to replace him, but Milan need to meet our demands for a deal to get over the line.
A move away suits all parties
We’re on the hunt for a new right-back, centre-back, winger and striker this summer and will sell existing players to generate funds for a replacement – the Daily Star say Danny Rose, Juan Foyth, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Moussa Sissoko and Aurier could be offloaded.
Aurier is reportedly open to a move away and would consider joining Milan, so the ball is in the Rossoneri’s court. We paid £22.5m for the 27-year-old in 2017, so Levy isn’t going to sell him for less money. If Milan are willing to meet our demands, we’ll be able to target a replacement for a similar price.
Who could come in for Aurier?
We’ve been linked with Ainsley Maitland-Niles of Arsenal, Max Aarons of Norwich City, Zeki Celik of LOSC Lille, Youcef Atal of OGC Nice and Achraf Hakimi of Real Madrid, but it remains to be seen which player we end up bringing in.
Mourinho likes fullbacks with high levels of industry that are diligent in their defensive duties while also providing an attacking threat, so it’s a shame that hasn’t worked out for Aurier. The Ivorian international has a lot of attributes that make him a good fit, but he’s been too inconsistent.
Aurier made 83 appearances in all competitions for Spurs, scoring six goals and making 14 assists, but he may have played in his final game for us. Time will tell whether it’s Milan that he ends up going to, however.
Summary
Aurier impressed after the lockdown, but Mourinho clearly doesn’t trust him and Levy considers him expendable. Selling Kyle Walker-Peters to Southampton for £12m was good business, so we should be able to get £20m+ for Aurier, be that from Milan or another side.
In other news, a Tottenham defender has signed a new three-year contract
For all of his strengths, and he had strengths, Serge Aurier seemed to loose concentration at times and when this led to blunders, they were real blunders. The other problem with the lad was that his crosses into the box didn’t seem well controlled too much of the time. I liked much about him, but we need someone who is more consistent in paying attention at the defensive end. After all, FB is first a defensive position, no?
LOL he seemed to lose concentration too often and thus to play too loose.