Report: Tottenham “frustrated” with slow progression of Porro talks, but deal likely

Tottenham Hotspur is still in negotiations to sign Sporting right wing back Pedro Porro. Must be a day that ends in Y, right? Yesterday, the online news reports both in Portugal and the UK were breathless reporting on “critical” meetings that would “make or break” the final deal.

Today, the mood seems to have shifted. Dan Kilpatrick writes in the Evening Standard that Spurs and Sporting have agreed, in broad strokes, a deal that will send Porro to Spurs for the previously-demanded €45m (£39m) fee. The negotiations that were leading up to and include today are final talks discussing finer points such as up front fee, payment structure, and other clauses, including Sporting agreeing to keep Porro until after their Portuguese League Cup match on Saturday.

But Kilpatrick also notes that Spurs officials have started to get “frustrated” with what they perceive as Sporting dragging their feet on completing talks. At some level you can understand — Sporting doesn’t want to sell Porro and are actively looking to find a replacement for him before the window closes, including Heerenveen fullback Milan van Ewijk and Brighton’s Tariq Lamptey. If you know your guy wants to leave for England, you’d probably want to stretch out the negotiations for as much as possible to give yourself time to get someone else in.

That said, there’s now confidence on all sides that a deal will eventually get done. The insistence on keeping him through the weekend obviously means we won’t see Porro in a Lilywhite shirt until after the FA Cup match at Preston this weekend, but he could in theory be available to play in the Feb. 5 home match against Manchester City.

Porro would be the second Tottenham signing of the window, after Spurs completed the half season loan for Villarreal and former Bournemouth forward Arnaut Danjuma.