Tottenham Hotspur's chances of keeping Hugo Lloris just increased

Some potentially big news coming out of Spain today. MARCA reports that Real Madrid are looking towards signing Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea NEXT summer as the negotiations for Spain's #1 are getting extremely complicated. This could mean that Tottenham Hotspur keeper Hugo Lloris may not be sold after all.

According to MARCA, Madrid is starting to accept that they might not be able to pry De Gea away from United, and are hence looking instead to make a "gentleman's agreement" with him that would see him join Madrid next summer on a free transfer.

But if the worst comes to the worst, both the club and the player are calm as they have come to an agreement that if United won't let them this summer, then he will become a 'Los Blancos' keeper the next one. The pact drawn up between the two parties dictates that should Real decide to go back on the plan, they would have to pay the keeper the equivalent of what will be a year's salary at his future club - a cool €5 million net.

With this deal, Real Madrid can ensure that De Gea doesn't renew with Manchester United, the keeper knowing what he is to earn next year, a lot more than he is presently on under Van Gaal, although probably less than what he is about to be offered by the English club in the proposed contract renewal. The deal works out well for both De Gea and Real.

So bear with me here, since this gets a little silly. The problem with the above statement is that Madrid can't legally sign De Gea to a pre-contract since he still has over a year to go on his current contract with United. If this is accurate (and it's MARCA, so it's highly unlikely that it is accurate), then Madrid has admitted essentially to either paying a €5m signing bonus to De Gea whether he signs with Madrid or not. Which is dumb, because what then is going to prevent United from saying "OK, sign with us and we'll give you more than Madrid AND you get their €5m."

I don't believe this for a second. A "gentleman's agreement" with De Gea is unenforceable, and smacks instead of MARCA trying to back away from the story in the face of De Gea possibly not becoming a Galactico this summer.

But all that's more or less gravy, since the point that's important to Tottenham fans is that the more complicated the De Gea-to-Madrid situation gets, the more likely it is that Spurs will be able to keep ahold of Hugo Lloris for another season. The fact that MARCA, the biggest pro-Madrid paper in Spain, is now willing to even entertain the idea that De Gea might not be with Madrid next season should make your hearts leap with joy.

Maybe Tottenham didn't have to break Hugo Lloris' wrist after all.