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There's news from the continent this morning regarding Dnipro footballer Yevhen Konoplyanka. According to Eurosport Turkey, the Ukrainian winger has flown to north London to complete a medical ahead of a summer transfer to Tottenham Hotspur.
However, there are a couple of problems with this report. First, it's odd that Eurosport Turkey would be the one to break this story and not either a British or a Ukrainian sports source. Why Eurosport Turkey? The report, written in Turkish, claims that Sevilla, who defeated Konoplyanka's Dnipro in the Europa League championship this spring and was interested in signing him, has backed off the deal after negotiations broke down (which is true). However, the immediate link back to Tottenham kind of comes out of nowhere, and isn't backed up by any quotes, sources, or real evidence.
So why did Sevilla back away from the Konoplyanka deal? It's not clear, but since Konoplyanka is leaving Dnipro on a free transfer it's certainly due to an overzealous agent and a desire for crazy wages. Konoplyanka is said to be desperate to get out of Ukraine (for obvious reasons), so the only way this isn't a gimme move for some club like Sevilla is because Konoplyanka is demanding stupid money. Which makes this rumor even more silly: what makes anyone think that Daniel Levy is going to countenance stupid money wages from ANYONE when Emmanuel Adebayor is still on the books? Do they even know who Daniel Levy IS?!
And then there's this tweet from Sky reporter Lyall Thomas:
No truth in Konoplyanka to #THFC
— Lyall Thomas (@LyallThomas) June 26, 2015
Thomas is pretty good when it comes to Spurs news, so I'm more inclined to believe this than a random Eurosport article.
Konoplyanka on a free transfer wouldn't be a terrible signing. He's decent enough and would probably be an upgrade over Andros Townsend and Aaron Lennon, and provides a different look to someone like Nacer Chadli. So could I be wrong? Absolutely. But I'm suuuuuuuuper skeptical about this report and am pretty sure this is unadulterated bulls**t, a connection leaked by his agent to try and salvage something out of the failed Sevilla negotiations. We'll find out with time, though. If #kono2015 is really in London for a medical, this will be corroborated within a few hours to a few days. If not, then it's just the latest in a long list of bat country rumors connected to Spurs.