The Dan James to Spurs rumors just won’t go away

For some reason, this rumor continues to be a thing. Fabrizio Romano tweeted this morning that, despite an onslaught of negative vibes from most Tottenham supporters over the past few days, Tottenham Hotspur still appears to be interested in a loan to buy plan for Leeds attacking midfielder Dan James.

Like, I just don’t get it. What’s the value-add for Dan James? Why him? Maybe he’s a player whom Antonio Conte has looked at in depth and decided that he can convert into, IDK, a world-class right back or something. But barring Conte going on national television, pointing at a photo of James and saying “This guy is going to be a star,” I really, really don’t see the point of this transfer.

One can hope that Dan James is just part of a “Paratici scattergun” process of evaluating transfer targets. He does that a lot — identifies a number of options in a particular position, works towards deals for all of them, and eventually settles on a primary target. The links for Hakim Ziyech and Yannick Carrasco are still out there, after all, and both are, based on all evidence, significantly better footballers than Dan James.

I hope that’s the case. With the transfer window closing tomorrow, I suppose we’ll find out pretty soon, huh?