Etienne Capoue transfer to Spurs agreed, according to French report

You can color me absolutely shocked about this report. According to Football 365 in France, Tottenham Hotspur and Toulouse have agreed to a fee for French international midfielder Etienne Capoue. The 25-year-old been a first team regular for Toulose since the 2008-09 season and has represented his country five times at the senior international level. Spurs will reportedly pay €10m with a possible €2m in add-ons.

Given that Tottenham are already a bit overloaded in defensive and two-way midifeld positions, this move comes as a bit of a shock. Capoue is good technically, but is much more of a defensive midfielder than a creative player and is probably somewhere between Paulinho and Sandro in style. He has also played a bit of central defense in a pinch and could be seen as cover in that position following the departure of Steven Caulker. Given his size and aerial ability, it wouldn't be terribly shocking if he played much more in defense for Spurs than he did for Toulouse, but he's been excellent as a midfielder during his career.

If this report is true -- and it's tough to say how legitimate it is or isn't at the moment -- it probably spells the end for most of Tottenham's backup midfielders. All of Scott Parker, Tom Huddlestone and Jake Livermore were going to struggle to win spots in the squad this year, but if Capoue is acquired, it wouldn't be surprising to see all of them leave.

Football 365 is a bit hit or miss on stuff, but sites or organizations that publish in different languages or countries often have different degrees of reliability from language to language or country to country, with each division being run differently (see: Goal, Sky). I can't vouch for the reliability of the French version of Football 365 or the lack therof, but the directness of the language of their report suggests that there's something here.