Wilmar Barrios tells Boca Juniors he’s leaving for Tottenham

Tottenham Hotspur’s quiet transfer window looks to be heating up in a hurry. After yesterday’s non-news of a Christian Pulisic bid that we unfortunately had to throw cold water on, we have a piece of news that looks to be genuine.

Argentine outlet El Sol is reporting that Boca Juniors midfielder Wilmar Barrios, who has impressed at the World Cup with Colombia, has told his club that he isn’t going to wait until January and is ready to make the jump to the Premier League with Tottenham Hotspur.

The article confirms what we’ve been hearing for a couple of weeks. Mauricio Pochettino seems to have locked onto Barrios as a fixture for Spurs’ midfield. The El Sol story claims that a fee of €25m will be the ultimate fee, which runs counter to previous reports of a €16m release clause that Boca was trying to renegotiate. Whatever, we’ll probably see soon enough.

Barrios is 24 years old and has shown that he is a high energy midfielder. His energy might be a tad too high, given that he headbutted Jordan Henderson and tried to turn his jaw into a jigsaw puzzle in their Round of 16 match-up. While he’s impressed some people, there is concern that this is purchase that is being based off of just a few performances on the biggest stage and he might not be good enough in the long run.

It would be a bit of a weird signing, as Spurs already have Eric Dier and Victor Wanyama on the books in Barrios’ preferred role. It could mean Spurs plan on pushing Dier back to center back full time, or it could mean Spurs are considering cutting bait on Wanyama after an injury-plagued season. It could also mean neither of those things! Only time will tell, but this certainly is looking like Spurs’ first purchase of the window.