DONE DEAL: Tottenham announce signing, loan-back of Destiny Udogie from Udinese

Tottenham Hotspur just can’t stop buying players. Today, the club announced their seventh signing of the summer transfer window, signing 19-year old left wing back Destiny Udogie from Udinese. Udogie was signed for a transfer fee of reportedly €20m plus escalators, and as part of the agreement was immediately loaned back to Udinese for the duration of the 2022-23 season.

Udogie is a young kid but his stats in his first full season of Serie A last year popped in a big way. The development of young players can be a crap-shoot, but if you squint, you can see some resemblance between Udogie’s statistics last season and that of a certain Gareth Bale during his breakout seasons at Tottenham Hotspur. Now, I’m not saying that Udogie is a future world-record transfer fee-breaking forward in the making. But I’m also not NOT saying that either.

Regardless, this is a solid signing for the future. Spurs have pretty much locked down their Ivan Perisic replacement at left wing back even though they also just signed the Croatian on a free transfer this summer. Udogie will spend the season at Udinese where he will continue to rack up minutes and improve in his home country of Italy. And with luck, he can integrate into Tottenham’s first team next season (or the season after) and become an important part of the club’s future.

Welcome to Spurs, Destiny! We’re glad you’re here. It was clearly predetermined by fate that you join this illustrious club.