Tottenham reportedly make €26m bid for Nice striker Pléa

Happy Wednesday! Before the World Cup matches begin this morning/afternoon, let’s begin the day with another transfer rumor. If a report from French media outlet RMC is to believed, Spurs have launched a €26m bid for 25-year old Nice attacker Alessane Pléa.

Interestingly, I can’t find any mention of this deal on RMC’s website or Twitter feed. (Update: here’s the source, buried in an article ostensibly about Loïc Remy). The usually-reliable GetFrenchFootballNews is the one who broke the story on social media.

As Jake wrote last week, Pléa is an interesting Tottenham target in that he’s scored a lot of goals and was a major contributor to Nice’s attack last season, and that his 2017-18 numbers were actually DOWN from 2016-17. In that sense he’s kind of a budget Anthony Martial, who is probably still Spurs’ top target, though Manchester United doesn’t want to sell him within the Premier League.

Many Spurs fans are naturally a little gun-shy about spending money for yet another young, versatile attacker from Ligue 1 after whiffing pretty dramatically on Clinton N’jie and Georges-Kevin N’koudou. However, the numbers seem to like Pléa, and if the Martial deal isn’t likely to happen he could be a pretty respectable back-up option and at half the price.

I’m still skeptical about this report and am waiting for it to be confirmed by some other reputable sources. We’ve seen a couple of rumors like this be debunked in the following days and weeks already, so I’m not ready to go all-in on it. Let’s wait and see.