Have Tottenham just agreed terms with a young French midfielder?

Could Tottenham Hotspur possibly be on the verge of making their first signing in the transfer window? That’s the gist of the latest rumors coming out of France. Foot Mercato is reporting today that Spurs have agreed personal terms with Nice midfielder Vincent Marcel on a five year deal, but have yet to work out an agreement with Marcel’s club.

Marcel is a total unknown quality, but apparently has potential, which could be why Spurs suddenly have interest in him. The 20-year old Frenchman plays primarily as a left footed right winger, and played a whopping 441 minutes in all competitions for Nice last season. He had no goals, no assists, and one yellow card that he picked up while playing 90 minutes against Krasnodar in the Europa League in December. There aren’t any highlight videos on YouTube of him that I can find. He’s a complete mystery.

The rumors are that Spurs scouts were watching Nice primarily because of interest in signing right back Ricardo Pereira, who was there on loan from Porto, but ended up being very interested in Marcel. Which is fine, but it feels a bit like going to the auto dealership intending to buy a sports car and coming home with a Peugeot.

I can’t begin to tell you whether or not this would be a good signing or not; it feels a bit like the signings of Clinton N’Jie and Georges-Kevin N’Koudou, except both Clinton and GKN were established players in Ligue 1 first teams before we bought them. This has the feel of a low-risk high-reward kind of development signing, but again, I challenge anyone to say that they’ve seen this kid play this season, and to let us know anything about him.

The only place in the English media where this rumor appears is The Sun, which naturally gets our bulls—t hackles up. For now, we’re side-eying it, and waiting for further developments.