Tottenham Hotspur has been linked to Dnipro winger Yevhen Konoplyanka for a couple of transfer windows. The speedy Dnipro winger and Ukrainian national team player is out of contract at the end of the season and apparently wants to leave Ukraine in the worst way. However, recent reports suggest that Dnipro is unlikely to part with Konoplyanka in the January window for less than €15m and instead the Ukrainian Premier League club will be content to lose him for free this summer.
A couple of items about this rumor:
- This is the kind of unsourced rumor that drives us all crazy. There are no quotes. There's no hard evidence either way. "ESPN Sources" could be anything from a source within the club to a player agent to "a guy who knows a guy who cuts the hair of a guy who works at Dnipro."
- That said, it could be truth. Dnipro are currently third in the Ukrainian Premier League behind Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk and are pushing for Champions League qualification. Konoplyanka is their best player. Could be that they'd rather keep him, try and qualify for Europa League, and replace him next summer instead of cashing in now.
- Despite my earlier assertion that £7m is a darned low price for a player of Konoplyanka's quality, his contract expiration means that Spurs (or whoever else) could sign him on a pre-contract here at any point and get him for nothing this summer anyway.
This is the very definition of a #batcountry rumor, and yet it's still somewhat weirdly plausible. Maybe Konoplyanka will be sold this month. Maybe he won't be. We have no idea! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯