Mail: Tottenham to open talks with United over Anthony Martial

There’s hope on the Anthony Martial to Tottenham Hotspur front this morning, but you might choose not to believe it because of where it’s being printed. The Daily Mail is reporting that Spurs are due to open negotiations with Manchester United next week to try and get the French forward to north London.

According to the report, United are seeking to get back as much of Martial’s original purchase price as they can — they purchased him for £38m in 2015, but it included a bunch of add-ons that may or may not drive the price up.

Pochettino reportedly LOVES Martial, and for good reason — he’s a very good footballer that had the misfortune of landing on a team with Jose Morinho, who shunted him to the periphery of the United squad after purchasing Alexis Sanchez from Arsenal in January. There are unsourced and unconfirmed reports floating around online saying that Martial wants to come to Spurs and stay in the Premier League, but United would prefer to sell him somewhere on the continent to prevent strengthening a league rival.

There was no mention of Toby Alderweireld in the Mail report which suggests that these could be separate deals, assuming both are actually in the works.

It’s a sketchy report from un unreliable source. But sometimes we choose to live in hope, right?