L’Equipe: Tottenham, Lyon agree loan deal for Lo Celso

One of the key outgoing pieces in this January transfer window with just three days left is Giovani Lo Celso and his status. Now it looks like he might have a new home as well. According to French daily L’Equipe, Tottenham Hotspur and Lyon have come to an agreement to send Gio to France on loan until the rest of the season.

Only one problem with that — Gio still has to agree.

Gio would essentially be Lyon’s replacement for Bruno Guimaraes, who just completed a large transfer to Newcastle. According to L’Equipe, Spurs would still pay half of Lo Celso’s wages for the duration of the loan (which is reportedly £70k/wk) and there would NOT be a purchase option at the end of it. So that’s interesting too — it could be that Spurs think they can get a better price for Gio this summer instead of pre-agreeing to sell him now, or (less likely) they think he might come good and reintegrate into Spurs’ side with some regular, injury-free football.

There’s always the chance that Gio himself could blow this deal up by refusing to go to France, but I’m not sure what he’d get out of that particular arrangement, when the alternative is very likely to stay at Spurs and not play football. We’ll see! But I’d expect him to take the deal.