Report: Fiorentina negotiating a loan for Tottenham’s Lo Celso

It’s no secret that Giovani Lo Celso is one of the Unwanted™ at Tottenham Hotspur under Antonio Conte. Since Conte’s arrival the Argentine attacking midfielder has been marginalized, loaned to Villarreal, and left at home when Spurs went on their preseason tour to Korea.

His Villarreal loan was a successful one and it was assumed that the Yellow Submarine would be GLC’s primary suitor as Spurs try and offload him this summer. But now it looks like there’s interest from another club, who were linked with Gio in the last transfer window. According to Gary Jacob writing in The Times (£), Fiorentina has re-entered the chat negotiations, and are attempting to work out a loan deal that could result in an eventual permanent move.

Fiorentina have revised their offer to sign Giovani Lo Celso on loan with a view to a permanent deal of £15 million. Tottenham Hotspur, who want to sell the Argentina midfielder, rejected the initial offer of a loan. Villarreal want to re-sign Lo Celso on a permanent deal but have not matched the valuation of about £20 million.

You might recall that Fiorentina was reportedly in negotiations with Spurs back in January to take Gio on loan, but he ultimately ended up at a Villarreal side that made it to the Champions League semifinals. Looks like they haven’t given up quite yet.

The main issue with both Fiorentina and Villarreal is that neither of them are offering what Tottenham wants — a permanent transfer of £20m. We’ve known that about Villarreal for a while now. But Jacob makes it sound as though Fiorentina is hoping that the inclusion of a £15m purchase option might make a deal more palatable. It’s not clear whether “a view to a permanent deal” means a purchase obligation, or an option, nor do we know what the details are and whether those would be acceptable to Spurs. We also don’t know whether Fiorentina would be an acceptable destination for Gio or if he prefers to return to Villarreal.

But we do know that Fabio Paratici is in Italy trying to hammer out agreements to offload not only Gio, but also Tanguy Ndombele, Harry Winks, Sergio Reguilon, and Joe Rodon. This rumor is a small forward movement in a positive direction. We’ll have to see whether anything comes of it.