Tottenham Hotspur To Hijack Liverpool's Move for Gylfi Sigurdsson?

Over the last 24 hours several blogs and papers have reported that Tottenham Hotspur may have entered the running to sign Hoffenheim's Gylfi Sigurdsson. The Icelandic midfielder spent the second half of last season on loan at Swansea City, where he impressed many with his performances scoring 7 goals in 19 games.

Early in the transfer period it was thought that Sigurdsson would make his stay in Wales permanent, but the departure of Swans boss Brendan Rodgers suddenly put that move in doubt. Rodgers' new club, Liverpool, have been the club most strongly linked with Sigurdsson now, despite having 8,000 midfielders. Though, in fairness, some of those midfielders are Charlie Adam, Jordan Henderson, and Stewart Downing.

Now, it is believed that Tottenham have spoken to the player and have offered him better personal terms than Liverpool and should Spurs meet Hoffenheim's valuation of £8 million Sigurdsson could be on his way to White Hart Lane.

This deal seems problematic for several reasons. First, Tottenham already have a player that plays the same position as Sigurdsson in Rafael van der Vaart. Unless the club is planning on moving the Dutchman this move makes little sense. Similarly, the club is without a manager and while Sigurdsson is very good, he's not the sort of player that fits every manager's system. I'm not buying the idea of the club making any buys, with the possible exception of Vertonghen, without first installing a new manager.