Losing Eberechi Eze is going to sting for Tottenham. They were so close that they were left with the feeling there was nothing more they could have done, yet another summer target escaped.
It was like Morgan Gibbs-White but worse. Spurs thought they had Gibbs-White, too, until Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis started throwing around legal threats before convincing his star man to sign a new deal.
This one is different, though. Eze is not staying at Crystal Palace. He is set to join Arsenal and that comes with a hint of humiliation for Tottenham, rekindling a familiar mood of anger and frustration among the fanbase.
Chairman Daniel Levy is firmly in the crosshairs. Supporters remember Willian swerving them at the last minute for Chelsea in 2013, and the summer of 2018, when Levy spent weeks low-balling hard-up and relegated Aston Villa for Jack Grealish and missed out on him.
Hence the familiar accusations of parsimony, that he was trying to squeeze a deal and could have been more clinical and decisive over Gibbs-White and Eze, because both players had release clauses in their contracts.
It is rarely quite so simple. Release clauses can be complex, but it is true the collapse of the Eze deal is a terrible look for Levy, not least because he is a player represented by CAA/Base.
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Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is facing fresh criticism from Spurs fans for the team’s faliure to secure key targets this summer
Tottenham thought they had a deal for Eberechi Eze wrapped up before Arsenal gazumped them to a transfer
The agency have several players already at the club including James Maddison, Pedro Porro, Richarlison, Pape Matar Sarr and Djed Spence, as well as recently departed captain Son Heung-min and recently sacked head coach Ange Postecoglou.
They have young Spurs players, too, and when not representing the talent directly, they often broker deals for the club.
CAA/Base were central to Thomas Frank’s move across London from Brentford and yet they have been unable to protect Levy from the embarrassment that goes with losing such a big transfer target to the arch enemy. Spurs were primed for this earlier in the summer and therefore cautious.
They knew Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta wanted Eze, but whether they like it or not, the Premier League’s food chain means Tottenham are unlikely to win a fight with any of their Big Six rivals in the transfer market.
This probably led them to focus first on Gibbs-White. Spurs even went back to Forest and made a second bid, above the £60million release clause, but Marinakis resisted and rejected it.
Gibbs-White signed his new Forest deal on July 26, a week before Maddison damaged cruciate knee ligaments, ruling him out for months and heightening Tottenham’s need to add creative flair.
Arsenal appeared to cool on Eze, meanwhile, when Ethan Nwaneri signed a new contract, so Spurs went back to Palace with caution. They allowed his release clause of £60m plus £8m in bonuses to lapse and finalised a deal this week for £55m plus £5m.
On Wednesday, Arsenal swept in to hijack the deal with an explanation linked to an injury Kai Havertz suffered at Manchester United on Sunday.
Missing out on Nottingham Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White was the first crushing blow for Spurs this summer
Spurs are also determined to press on with a move for Manchester City’s Savinho, who has always been a target separate to Eze
Eze is unlikely to ever play at centre forward like Havertz though and the idea there would have been no interest without the German’s injury does not stack up. It seems more probable that Arsenal never did back away and were confident Eze wanted to join them, happy for Levy to do what he does and keep the price down.
If it was, they played their hand superbly and Spurs never really had a chance. Amid the disappointment in N17 on the morning after was a hint they might have been played. They were just not entirely sure by whom.
There was little time to wallow, though, with Frank needing to fill the creativity void left by Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski, who should be back before the end of the year.
Levy will return to the shortlist drawn up by technical director Johan Lange, which features Maghnes Akliouche of Monaco and Nico Paz of Como. Akliouche is a 23-year-old who has played for France at all levels to Under 23 and Paz is a 20-year-old Spanish-born Argentina international previously with Real Madrid, who have a buy-back option.
Spurs are also determined to press on with a move for Manchester City’s Savinho, who has always been a target separate to Eze. The Brazil winger is valued by City at £67m. A deal will be more likely if Pep Guardiola is successful in his chase of Rodrygo from Real Madrid. It might begin to soothe the pain at Spurs.
