Rennes and Skimpy: Ligue 1 club close to loan deal for Joe Rodon

Once more, the outgoing deals that we thought Tottenham Hotspur were close to making happen aren’t actually the ones that are happening. This afternoon, Fabrizio Romano is out with a tweet that says Ligue 1 side Rennes are close to a loan agreement for central defender Joe Rodon.

Romano gives credit to Mike McGrath, who first broke the story of Rennes interest about an hour or so ago. Romano has a lot more detail, however.

So we’ve known that Joe was a target for a loan or purchase this window. Although Antonio Conte has said that he likes him, it’s clear that he probably wasn’t set for a ton of playing time this season unless something happened to Eric Dier. Still, I’m surprised by a link to Rennes. Rodon had previously been connected to Fulham, which wasn’t GREAT but was at least a Premier League club.

I don’t watch a ton(nes) of Rennes but they did enough to beat Tottenham in the Europa Conference League last season and surprisingly finished fourth in Ligue 1, qualifying them for Europa this season.

The €20m purchase option is also interesting. It doesn’t FEEL like a lot of money, but Spurs bought Rodon from Swansea for £11m two seasons ago so this actually would represent a healthy return on their investment should Rennes exercise their option. That would still be a pretty significant outlay for Rennes, though — their record signing is €28m for Jeremy Doku. But if Joe does well in France, they might decide to exercise the option with an eye to flipping him back to England in a year or so for another healthy profit.

I’m a little sad that we never really got to see what Rodon could do in a Spurs shirt, but I suppose Rennesing away to France in search of playing time is the best thing for him and his development.

As always, this isn’t a done deal, but considering how fast the Dane Scarlett loan moved, we might wake up to Joe wearing black and red tomorrow morning.