Tottenham, Leicester reach £40m verbal agreement for James Maddison

Monday was such a slow news day that I posted about it on Carty Free’s Twitter, asking Tottenham to “do stuff.” Well, that monkey’s paw certainly curled. In addition to [gestures to everything], we now have this late news update from our good buddy Fabrizio Romano: Tottenham Hotspur have reached a breakthrough in its negotiations with Leicester City for the transfer of James Maddison, reaching a verbal agreement said to be around £40m.

We thought that this was going to happen somewhat quickly, but I didn’t expect it to happen THIS quickly. And £40m is a much more palatable price for a peak player on a relegated team with one year left on his contract than the £60m that Leicester was demanding. But this is now negotiations work. There are suggestions that Spurs going to be paying a significant percentage of that fee up front, probably at Leicester’s insistence, though we’ll have to wait for additional reporting before we know for sure.

Spurs have already wrapped up transfers for Dejan Kulusevski and, as of today, new starting keeper Guglielmo Vacario. Maddison would be the third signing of the window, and it’s still only June.

I’ve been a Tottenham fan a long time and I’m still not used to this new thing where Spurs go out and identify — and then sign — players early in the window. It feels weird... but good! Ange Postecoglou is going to have a couple of his top targets in place before the players report for preseason training in early July, though there’s still a lot of work to do.

Spurs are currently in negotiations with Bayer Leverkusen for CB Edmond Tapsoba, and depending on what happens with Harry Kane they might be in for another attacker as well. But this is a good start.