Kilpatrick: Lo Celso has not been sold to Villarreal....yet

Giovani Lo Celso’s time at Tottenham Hotspur will officially end this transfer window. The only question is how soon will Spurs sell him off? Yesterday, rumors dropped that a deal for the Argentine midfielder was all but completed and that Villarreal wanted it finished by June 7. The rumor, however, was flimsy because it came from a relatively unknown person in Spanish football reporting. The tweet is now deleted, which falls in line with Dan Kilpatrick’s reporting today: That rumor was garbage and Spurs are still shopping.

We’re always going to take the word of a Spurs beat writer over anyone else, so if Kilpatrick is saying there’s nothing there, then that’s gospel. Villarreal definitely want him, but given he performed quite well for the La Liga side in the second half of the season, Spurs want to shop around and see if they can pump the bidding up on him. It’s clear he’s not in Antonio Conte’s plans considering Rodrigo Bentancur was bought in January while Lo Celso was loaned out.

The good news is that there should be a few buyers lined up for Lo Celso’s services and we should get news on that over the coming weeks. It’s a far rosier situations compared to Tanguy Ndombele, who had an up and down time at Lyon and didn’t finish on the strongest note. Lyon aren’t interested in taking him on a permanent basis which means another loan is almost certainly in his future.

Moving back to Lo Celso, expect to hear more rumblings about offers sooner rather than later. This is how Fabio Paratici works: He wants to get business done quickly so Conte has his squad as locked in as possible once preseason starts. It’s a breath of fresh air to years past where deals went right down to the wire and players weren’t really settled in until November or even December.

It’s a shame this is how the story for Lo Celso will end at Spurs, but given there was almost nobody upset about his departure at the club back in January, it was inevitable.