Tottenham has told Harry Winks to look for another club this summer

The writing’s been on the wall at Tottenham Hotspur for Harry Winks for a while now, and now it looks even more likely that he’s going to be leaving the club this summer. According to Dan Kilpatrick at the Evening Standard, Winks has been told that he is free to leave the club in search for regular first team football.

According to the report, Spurs want £20m for Winksy, but have signaled that they’re willing to be flexible, and could accept a lower fee with a series of performance-enhanced escalators. To my mind that seems to be more likely — the Premier League is flush with cash, but many clubs are still coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic-induced financial crisis and may be more willing to work on a less structured deal.

Winks saw his playing time drop precipitously under Antonio Conte — which makes sense because he’s been pretty bad — and rarely made the pitch except as a bench option and late-game substitute the entire second half of the season. That said, he should attract a fair amount of attention, likely from midtable clubs and below. He’s an English, home grown central midfielder, and ironically FBref has him in the 98th percentile for progressive passes. As much crap as we’ve given him over the past few years, put him in the right situation (say, as part of a midfield three with license to pass forward) and he could be a plus add to a lot of clubs. Just not Tottenham.

Interestingly, the Standard also points out that Winks has Spanish heritage and would be open to the possibility of leaving for La Liga. I’m actually kind of curious how he would do in Spain (just not curious enough to follow whatever La Liga team he ends up on).

I’m really trying to be nice here. He seems like a really decent guy and I honestly do hope he ends up in a situation that benefits both him and whatever club he ends up at.