Vincent Janssen en route to London for medical after Tottenham given transfer fee ultimatum

With the reports in this morning’s newspapers, the Vincent Janssen deal isn’t 100% confirmed... but boy howdy is it close. Matt Law at The Telegraph reports today that Tottenham Hotspur and AZ Alkmaar are in discussions over an £18.8m transfer fee – higher than anything previously reported – and that Janssen is now en route to London for a medical at Spurs’ training ground.

The reports say that AZ is demanding the entire fee be paid by the weekend. The inflated price would presumably include the normal performance based escalators that Tottenham normally tries to get into transfer fees like this one. It’s an ultimatum that Spurs have yet to agree to, which carries with it a certain level of irony considering Daniel Levy’s reputation for being a shrewd and ruthless negotiator.

Dutch paper De Telegraf, which has been a reliable source of information about this transfer, says that Janssen has left AZ’s training facilities and is en route to London for a medical. Assuming everything goes fine there and the transfer agreement is signed, the official announcement would be made on Monday.

Meanwhile, Janssen expressed relief to local media that the deal is close to completion.

“AZ and Spurs are talking now. It’s not 100 per cent, but it’s looking good. Otherwise I would have trained.

I’m happy the clubs are talking now. I’m going to go home and wait. It could take an hour, but it could also take longer.”

The deal would be the largest ever outgoing transfer for AZ and represents a fee 40 times greater than what they paid for him just last summer.

It would be an incredible and horrific irony if Spurs would walk away from this deal while the player is in town getting a medical. Janssen is obviously been tapped as their guy, so I’d expect the deal to be made. Either way, we’ll know soon.