Tottenham eying Brazilian attacker Malcom in January transfer window

We have ourselves a genuine Tottenham Hotspur January transfer window rumor, people! Reports out of France and the UK are suggesting that Spurs are taking a serious look at young Brazilian attacking midfielder Malcom, who is currently playing for Ligue 1 side Bordeaux.

A French news outlet had previously suggested that Spurs had a £31m bid for Malcom rejected this past Friday, but Sky Sports’ Lyall Thomas understands reports that while the rejected bid was bogus, Spurs are very interested in him, as are Bayern Munich and Manchester United.

Malcom is a 20-year old Brazilian attacker who came up through the Corinthians academy. He is an explosive, dribbly winger type who is currently playing in Ligue 1 for Bordeaux, who signed him from Corinthians for €5m in 2016. He has scored seven goals and notched four assists in 18 games this season in France. There are even suggestions that Brazil national team manager Tite is considering adding him to the World Cup squad for this summer’s tournament in Russia.

I know what you’re thinking — a young, fast, dribbly guy playing in France? what could possibly go wrong? — but this kid seems to be cut from a different cloth than Clinton N’Jie or Georges-Kevin N’Koudou. He can play anywhere across the forward attacking band, though he was most often deployed on the right side of midfield at Bordeaux. He’s the kind of winger who loves to cut inside and shoot, loves to take on players (averaging 2.8 dribbles/game), and can pass very well (2.4 key passes/game). He loves to shoot from distance, and has an xG of 3.92 and xA of 5.48 in 1427 minutes this season, so his numbers are pretty good, even if he is outperforming xG by a bit.

Here’s his YouTube highlights video. The video is from October and includes a fair amount of highlights from his time in Brazil, but it does give you an idea of the kind of things that he can do.

I’m not going to sit here and type that you should expect a lot of signings from Tottenham Hotspur in the January transfer window. Heck, if recent history is any indication, you probably shouldn’t expect ANY incoming transfers from Mauricio Pochettino, or if there are any, you shouldn’t expect them to make any sort of positive impact right away on this year’s squad.

However, like the rumor about Ajax’s David Neres a couple of days ago, this is the kind of player that Tottenham should be looking at — young, exciting players that have the potential to be superstars but have a fair amount of development yet to go. He certainly looks like a player that could thrive under Pochettino’s tactical system at Spurs.

Sky is suggesting that Bordeaux might want as much as £50m for the winger, which is a lot, but is becoming par for the course in today’s insane transfer market. I don’t know if he’d go for that much, but he looks like the kind of player that big clubs might want to snap up now.