Are Tottenham back in for Nice’s Alassane Plea?

Just a couple of days ago it looked as though Nice forward Alassane Plea was heading to Borussia Monchengladbach and not Tottenham Hotspur. But maybe not!

According to Luke Edwards in the Telegraph, Plea has his heart set on a move to the Premier League and hence is not so interested in the Bundesliga. The other club interested in Plea, Newcastle United, has apparently only offered £20, well below Nice’s valuation of £27m, which has left an opening for Spurs to do some GAZUMPING if they so desire.

I don’t have strong opinions on Plea. His numbers look pretty good, but I haven’t seen him play enough to have a sense if this would be a good signing or not. What I suspect is that if Spurs do sign Plea it means we’ve pretty much given up on prying Anthony Martial away from Manchester United. And if THAT’S the case, it makes me wonder even more about the fate of Toby Alderweireld. Losing Toby to United without getting Martial in return would be a bummer, but sometimes you just can’t do the deal that you want to do.

To be clear, this isn’t a “Spurs have bid for Plea” article, it’s a “Spurs have the option to hijack a Newcastle deal” article. It doesn’t mean that they will, and it’s possible that they have other targets (MartialMartialMartialMartial) in mind. But we know that Plea was in Mauricio Pochettino’s brain as a possible option. This deal may not be as dead as what it appeared to be.