Tottenham have made inquiry about Championship striker

The transfer rumor mill has been surprisingly quiet thus far for Tottenham in January. While Spurs aren't necessarily known for conducting a lot of business, the belief has been Spurs were in evaluation mode first and would try to conduct their business in the second half of the month. If you want to believe the Standard, that's exactly what's happening.

According to the article, Tottenham has made a formal inquiry into the availability of Fulham striker Moussa Dembele. The 19-year-old Frenchman is enjoying a decent season in England's second level, bagging 13 goals in 28 appearances, 17 of which he has started. There's going to be some competition for his services, though.

Manchester United, Monaco, Feyenoord, Borussia Dortmund and Napoli are also among the clubs monitoring Dembele, but, were Fulham to hold onto him until the summer, selling to an English club would be in their interests.

As he is under 24, foreign clubs would have to pay a nominal compensation fee, while the system in this country would bring in a substantially bigger transfer fee.

Dembele, who has represented his native France at Under-19 level, has scored nine goals in 21 starts for the Cottagers this term and losing him would be a bitter blow to Fulham boss Slavisa Jokanovic.

"I am not thinking about selling my key players like Ross McCormack or Moussa Dembele," he said.

The problem that Jokanovic has is that he may not have a choice in wanting to keep Dembele. The Frenchman is out of contract at the end of the season, and while Fulham would get compensation due to the Under-24 rule, a bidding war now might make more sense for Fulham's Director, Mike Rigg.

There's an added twist to this possible transfer, if you want to believe the Daily Mail: Spurs are apparently willing to throw a player in to grease the wheels.

Spurs have informed Fulham they are willing to let one of their youngsters head in the opposite direction as a potential sweetener.

Fulham director of football Mike Rigg is currently weighing up which Spurs fringe players could form part of the proposed deal.

Now, it's the Daily Mail, so take that with an entire truckload of salt, but if Jokanovic is stubborn and tells Rigg no way are we selling unless we get a warm body in return, Spurs could offer up a few options. I highly doubt that Andros Townsend would be willing to go down to the Championship, so let's scratch him off the list. More than likely, loaning a player to Fulham seems to be the way to go. Spurs have a loaded youth academy and could send the Cottagers a player to help them in their quest to at least stay in the Championship as they don't appear to be a major threat to regain promotion to the Premier League.

This isn't full out #BatCountry, but it's not exactly concrete information. We know Tottenham are in the market to add some depth and Dembele is one of those players we've been linked to for awhile now. He would provide some much needed depth behind Kane. Whether or not any or all of this happens will be determined in the next couple of weeks.