Tottenham Hotspur will look elsewhere for defensive help as Bastoni appears to be staying at Inter

You can’t win them all, and it seems Tottenham Hotspur will miss out on their top LCB target.

Reports out of Italy today stated that this was a possible deciding moment in whether or not Alessandro Bastoni was going to stay with Inter Milan or be forced out the door due to financial reasons. While it started with a simple “Inter and Bastoni are meeting” tweet that is now deleted, Calciomercato stated that one of Bastoni or Milan Škriniar would be leaving the club, given that Gleison Bremer was close to joining. Spurs have not been shy about their pursuit, but it appears Bastoni will not be leaving, and that comes from his agents:

Now, we all know things are fluid and situations change, but Bastoni has been pretty clear that he wanted to return unless the club told him otherwise. It appears that Inter want him back and that’s the plan for them. Barring a collapse of their own structure, it appears Spurs are not going to get the 23-year-old.

So what does this mean? There were reports out of La Liga yesterday that Fabio Paratici’s backup plan was a swap deal with Villarreal for Pau Torres that would involve midfielder Giovani Lo Celso. This makes a ton of sense given Lo Celso played well down the stretch for them on loan and he’s comfortable in Spain. Torres has been wanting a payday and Spurs have been tracking the 25-year-old since before last summer. Like Bastoni, he has two years remaining on his contract and valuations are similar, but with a bargaining chip like Lo Celso, the wheels might be easier to grease.

We all wanted Bastoni, but Pau Torres would be a hell of a consolation prize. I wouldn’t expect Spurs to go after Škriniar, though they might sniff around for Lautaro Martinez if the rather insane reporting about Lukaku going back to Inter is anything plausible. That’s a conversation for later, though. Right now, Paratici will move on from Bastoni and try to get another target that Conte has green-lit.