Spurs to meet with Marseille president over Florian Thauvin transfer

There have been murmurs coming out of the #batcountry wilds lately about Tottenham being interested in signing 22-year old French winger Florian Thauvin, and now that interest seems to be manifesting into an actual concrete rumor. Various outlets are reposting a story from French newspaper Le Parisien that Olympique de Marseille president Vincent Labrune is set to meet with Tottenham officials on Tuesday to discuss a possible summer transfer for Thauvin.

The original Le Parisien article is behind a paywall, and there doesn't appear to be a whole lot of there there if you know what I mean, so this is not a rumor that you want to take as gospel. A meeting, if it happens, may signify serious interest, and may also signify intent. However, if the Leandro Damiao saga has taught us anything we should know now that a meeting most certainly does not mean that Spurs are buying Thauvin or even that they will make a bid.

Spurs were linked to Thauvin last summer as well, and we wrote about him in August. He's a young, fast, talented, but temperamental winger who is coming off a somewhat less than impressive season with OM, scoring 5 goals in 30 appearances. He's been linked away from OM for a while now, and it seems like he's drifting towards the fringes of Marcelo Bielsa's squad. He's primed for a move, and at least on paper he seems like the kind of young "moneyball" player that Mauricio Pochettino and Paul Mitchell like to target.

Putting the cart firmly in front of the horse for a second, a Thauvin (or other winger) signing probably means the departure of someone like Nacer Chadli or Andros Townsend, or possibly even Erik Lamela. At the very minimum, that Tottenham appears to be interested in Thauvin indicates that they're looking for an upgrade on the wing, and that's not a bad thing at all.