Clement Lenglet agrees loan move to Aston Villa

Scratch another potential Tottenham Hotspur defender off your transfer tracker. According to Fabrizio Romano, Clement Lenglet will not be rejoining Tottenham this summer, because his parent club Barcelona have already agreed to a loan deal with Aston Villa.

As I referenced earlier on the Ansu Fati article, Barcelona are just flat-out broke — attempting to manufacture additional palancas and getting as many low-priority, high wage players off the books so they can free up cash to actually make signings and register players. That probably explains why Lenglet was so closely linked with a return to Spurs for so long this summer in the Spanish media — Barca are pretty desperate for cash, basically scrounging through their couch cushions at the Nou Camp at this point. The fact that they’ve agreed to a straight loan with no option just seems to corroborate that they’re kicking the can down the road (and Barcelona is VERY good at kicking cans down roads).

Lenglet always seemed like a Break Glass In Case You Need a Centerback move. He was... fine under Antonio Conte and probably would’ve been... well, fine under Ange thanks to his ability on the ball, but his profile hasn’t matched his high wages and he always kind of felt like a fall-back option. And that’s exactly what he was under Conte as well.

He’ll probably be pretty good for Aston Villa, or at least cromulent. But I’m not too fussed about Spurs not re-signing him this season considering all the other business Spurs have to do.