Tottenham Hotspur are edging closer towards beating their North London rivals Arsenal to the signing of highly-rated Nottingham Forest centre-half Jamaal Lascelles, with the starlet set to become Andre Villas-Boas’ second defensive acquisition of the summer if he does arrive at White Hart Lane.
Spurs have already trumped Arsenal to the signing of Ajax defender Jan Vertonghen this summer, and are set to steal ahead of the Gunners again for the England Under-19 international, who has been closely followed by numerous scouts around the country following his impressive performances on loan at Stevenage last term.
The 18-year old, who has progressed through Forest’s youth system, has just one year left on his contract at the club, and could find the lure of a big Premier League side too hard to turn down.
With that in mind, Forest might be tempted to sell this summer rather than losing him on a free transfer next year, and are considering bids for Lascelles.
The likes of Aston Villa and Everton are also said to be monitoring Lascelles, but Spurs seem to have stolen a march on each of the other contenders, and have submitted an offer for the youngster.
“Spurs have already trumped Arsenal to the signing of Ajax defender Jan Vertonghen this summer…”
Have they really? Great story….would the fact Arsenal never made an offer for Vertonghen enter into your thoughts…..?
No, thought not. Why let facts ruin a great dramatic storyline…..?
Arcy,
Spurs and Arsenal and every club have been interested in, wanting to sign, and been trumped by another for a player. To say a club didn’t put in a formal offer doesn’t mean anything. Now it may be that Arsenal didn’t bid AND were not interested in Vertonghem but that’s another story and doesn’t seem to be the case from what I’ve read and heard. There are a lot of reasons one doesn’t put in a bid for a player they want. Perhaps, the player indicated that he wants to go elsewhere…perhaps the “trumped” club made an informal inquiry and learned that the player wants to play for another or has an offer that Arsenal are not willing to meet…in both cases, the “trumped” club wouldn’t have made an offer but would still be appropriately characterized as “trumped.” So before spewing your indignant bile at reporters who so often deserve it for legitimate reasons, take a deep breath and use your head or show some balls and claim that Arsenal were never even interested in Vertonghen. Your mischaracterization is as bad as that which you accuse the writer.
Sincerely, PS
lets say for arguements sake, aresenal didnt in fact make an offer, your going to lose rvp in the summer, and with walcott on the edge, who does arsenal really have left, Giroud has yet to prove himself and arteta was done before he even came to arsenal, arshavin is a joke, so have fun playing europa league in the coming years.