The Clinton N’Jie transfer situation gets weirder after Arsenal tried to buy him from Spurs

We still aren’t sure what’s going on with Clinton N’Jie. Rumors abound today that the Cameroonian forward, whom Spurs bought from Lyon just a year ago, has fallen out of favor at Tottenham Hotspur and he’s set for a departure. As of yet, however, nobody’s certain just what exactly is happening.

A story in French daily L’Equipe from yesterday states that Clinton is close to moving back to Ligue 1 with Marseille on a year long loan, and OM will have an option to buy him for only €7m (£5.8m), provided he plays in a set number of matches next season. That’s less than half of what Spurs paid for him last summer, and would represent a significant – and uncharacteristic – loss for Daniel Levy in the transfer window.

But it gets weirder. Today, L’Equipe is reporting in its print edition (as reported by Get French Football News) that Spurs rejected an overture from Arsenal, of all clubs, to take N’Jie off of their hands. Villarreal and “an unknown French club” also made inquiries.

I’m still not sure why Spurs are so eager to get rid of N’Jie. Earlier reports suggested that Clinton had a meeting with Tottenham’s coaching staff where they pretty much laid out that his chances this season would be few and far between, but Clinton seemed ready to stay and fight for his place until recently. Now it seems Spurs are ready to take a pretty big hit just to get him off the books.

Clinton’s injury last season means that we really don’t have much match time on which to judge him, so at a certain level we have to take the club’s word that he’s surplus to requirements. It’s kind of disappointing, however, that we may not ever get to see if he could fulfill his potential with Tottenham.

We’re still awaiting the final word on this along with the expected announcement of the signing of Georges-Kevin N’Koudou, and we’ll pass along any updates as we’re made aware of them.