Tottenham's Benjamin Stambouli flies to New York City to have medical with PSG

Remember when this transfer was simple and it was going to be "Capoue and Benji to Watford for £10m" and we could just move on?  Yeah, it seems insane that I'm actually typing the following sentence, but here it is:

Benjamin Stambouli is apparently on his way to NYC to have a medical with Paris Saint-Germain.

Le Parisien has the report as follows:

Benjamin Stambouli, la nouvelle recrue du PSG, s'envolera samedi soir vers New-York où il passera sa visite médicale dans la journée de dimanche. Dans la foulée, il paraphera un contrat de cinq ans et fera connaissance de ses nouveaux coéquipiers qui seront, eux, de retour de Toronto où ils disputent un match amical face à Benfica dans la nuit de samedi à dimanche.

Le PSG est Tottenham se sont mis d'accord pour un transfert de 8 M€. Laurent Blanc apprécie la polyvalence de l'ancien Montpelliérain, capable de jouer milieu, défenseur central et même latéral. Stambouli est la deuxième recrue parisienne après Kevin Trapp. Depuis plusieurs jours, les dirigeants s'activent sur le dossier Angel Di Maria qui devrait être la tête d'affiche du mercato parisien. L'affaire devrait se dénouer fin juillet, le joueur étant actuellement en vacances.

If your French is rusty, here's the rundown:

Depending on who you ask, this all started when Watford put in a bid and Benji seemed all for it, then suddenly got cold feet.  Nobody was quite sure as to why since the move seemed to make perfect sense:  he'd be paired up with fellow Frenchman Etienne Capoue so there would be a familiar face, he would still be in the Premier League, and Watford obviously would have loads of playing time for him.

Enter PSG, who somehow got involved with this.  Reports are that Stambouli's camp reached out to PSG to gauge interest and somehow struck a deal.  A fee hadn't even been mentioned until a few days ago, and it seems to be somewhere in the neighborhood of £5.5m, which would be fantastic.

Today, it appears that Stambouli is on his way to NYC to have a medical with PSG, where the Ligue 1 Champions are currently preparing to take on Benfica in the International Champions Cup.

Watford has since pulled out of this, realizing they have zero chance of going head to head with a European giant.

So, there you have it.  It looks as though Benji's stay in North London will last just a year and he's about to move to one of the biggest teams in the world.

Silly Season is fun.