Wolfsburg have reportedly agreed to fee for Tottenham attacker

We here at Cartilage Free Captain feel your pain regarding Silly Season. It never seems to end and just when you think rumors can’t get any crazier, something else pops up and makes you want to go lie down. That’s how we’re feeling about this Heung Min Son rumor that we reported on a few days ago.

What started off as an easily dismissed rumor that bordered on Dispatches from Bat Country levels has now picked up some steam, though there’s plenty of reason not to believe it.

Bild Sport are reporting that VfL Wolfsburg have not only renewed their interested in Son, but have reportedly agreed to a €30m (£25.6m) transfer fee for the South Korean International. The article itself is behind a paywall, so you won’t get much unless you have a subscription. We’re finding this out from the Twitter account Hotspur Related:

Without being able to read the article, this looks pretty scary on the surface for our depth. However, since I still think this rumor isn’t 100% believable, a little research was in order. Here’s what I found:

The part about Son already agreeing to personal terms is from two days ago on the 26th of August. This may or may not be true, and while it’s frowned upon for players to get terms out of the way before a fee is agreed upon, we all know that this happens and nobody gets punished for it. If you go into that article, though, there’s a reason that only the terms have been agreed upon:

That quote is from an article on August 25, and a subsequent article from HITC expands upon this, not only listing the quotes but also saying that Schalke 04 were interested but put off by the price tag.

There are two ways to look at this:

First, Wolfsburg found an extra €10m laying around, perhaps from the recent sale of Bas Dost to Sporting CP. Terms haven’t been confirmed on the sale, but if they were willing to pay €20m before their sporting director came out and said they couldn’t afford that, then the sale may have changed the game. It’s obvious that they want Son, given that the director seems to agree that they’re interested but at the right price.

Second, this is your standard nothing rumor and Bild Sport have bad information but decided to run with it anyways. This wouldn’t be a surprise, given the state of transfer rumors in the media today

For me, this is a tough pill to swallow. Son has had one season in the Premier League. He’s scored some goals but it took him time to get settled into London and also had some injuries. While I firmly believe that Levy would pull the trigger on this given it would be about a £3.5m profit from last year’s transfer, I refuse to believe that Son isn’t in Poch’s plans. If this is true, then one would have to believe that these links to Isco, Coric, and Perisic might actually have some truth to them. The attacking band would suddenly be thin given that Nacer Chadli is off to West Bromwich Albion and Alex Pritchard is long gone.

The bottom line on this is that we should pump the brakes and wait to see if anything more solid comes out. Given that the international break has started and the transfer window closes on Wednesday, outlets are going to be rushing to get news out.