Fekir’s transfer may open the door to Lo Celso joining Tottenham

It’s shaping up to be another busy week in the transfer market for Tottenham Hotspur.

Spurs are currently in Shanghai for their next match in the International Champions Cup after their 3-2 victory over Juventus. Just because the squad is on their pre-season tour doesn’t mean the transfer market stops. Quite the opposite is the true, and Monday has given us a lot to talk about in regard to Giovani Lo Celso.

Let’s Tarantino this and work backwards. First off, Real Betis officially announced the signing of Nabil Fekir from Olympique Lyonnais on Monday evening.

How Fekir passed his medical with his knee held together by duct tape and Gorilla Glue is beyond me, but the important part is that he’s now a Betis player. The reported fee is €20m + €10m in add-ons, plus a 20% sell-on clause for Lyon. That’s a pretty good bit of business on both sides.

Fekir has been touted in recent weeks as the replacement for Lo Celso, whom Betis purchased from Paris Saint-Germain for a total of €25m (€3m initial loan fee + €22m option) back in May. This came as no surprise to anyone as Betis bought the player knowing that his valuation was much higher and wanted to flip him for some cash and another player. Even with PSG’s 20% sell-on clause in the agreement, Betis had a plan.

About an hour before Betis officially announced Fekir, this nugget of information dropped on Twitter from one of the aggregator accounts, Daily Hotspur:

Citing L’Equipe, the move is slated to go through now that Fekir is official. Of course, we couldn’t find the article regarding the story, which almost certainly means that it will appear in the print edition tomorrow. This is standard practice for L’Equipe. This information matches up with a Monday morning article from Football Insider, stating the deal was in its final stages.

There is now growing hope that a deal can be finalised at just over £50million, supplemented by performance-related add-ons for a player Mauricio Pochettino has identified as a prime summer signing.

The reason we didn’t report this early on Monday was because the sourcing seemed slightly flimsy, with loaded language that reeks of conjecture. Now, with L’Equipe saying essentially the same thing, it’s more smoke to the fire. Of course, we go the standard Sky Sports understands tweet mid-Monday:

EDIT: Hahaha disregard that, I’m an idiot and posted a fake twitter account.

Add it all up and we’re now at DEFCON 2 for this transfer. Betis have stopped banging their heads against the wall and realized Tottenham are the only club that are serious about buying the Argentine. There’s been numerous reports that he has also made it clear that this is the move he wants: A move to a big club, Champions League football and playing under the tutelage of a fellow countryman. Oh, he’s going to get paid too: The wages being reported are around £150,000/week.

With Ryan Sessegnon apparently ready to move across London with a deal imminent there, Spurs’ transfer window is about to go from “great” to “fantastic” in a hurry.

UPDATE (8:17AM ET): I’m still waking up, but here’s a non-fake Twitter account reporting more of the same. Romain is a verified journalist who mainly works for Eurosport France. He’s not slam dunk territory like Pearce, Dank P or Gold, but it’s not far off: