Davinson Sanchez not at Ajax team hotel, Tottenham transfer imminent?

Breaking news on Twitter from Amsterdam, where Ajax is getting ready to face Rosenborg in the Europa League playoff round. According to Die Telegraaf journalist Mike Verweij, Colombian defender and Ajax Player of the Year Davinson Sanchez is not with Ajax at their team hotel ahead of the match, which suggests the player might be on the move.

Ominous message for @Ajax fans. #daosanchez26 not at the Hilton hotel, where the team prepares to duel with Rosenborg.

The smart money here suggests that Ajax and Tottenham have finally worked out a fee for the transfer of Sanchez to north London. Sanchez is a hugely important player to Ajax, and there’s zero reason that he wouldn’t be with the team, even if injured, ahead of such an important match.

Sanchez is reported to desire a move to Spurs and even missed some time with an “injury” before returning to training early in the week. Spurs had apparently worked out personal terms with Sanchez, but was still negotiating a transfer fee with Ajax, said to be north of €35m.

Let’s be clear here: we don’t know for sure if Sanchez is on his way to London right now. There were spurious reports from a Colombian radio station yesterday that suggested Real Madrid was trying to gazump the deal by putting in a €45m last minute bid, but there doesn’t seem to be any corroboration of that. But it seems clear that SOMETHING is happening in Amsterdam, and there’s a lot of smoke in the air suggesting that Sanchez could be a Tottenham Hotspur player before too long.

So for goodness sake, NOBODY MOVE.

UPDATE (11:46AM ET): The Telegraph are reporting that the deal is imminent and the final payment structure is the only thing that is holding up the deal. From the article, it looks like a bunch of add-ons with a sizable fee:

Tottenham are willing to pay around £28million up front and a potential £14m in add-ons to take Sanchez to White Hart Lane.

We’re looking at a potential smashing of our club record fee for a transfer with all the add-ons. We’ll have more as it becomes available.