PSG Reportedly Plotting £100M Offer for Tottenham's Christian Eriksen
August 14, 2018
Paris Saint-Germain reportedly have plans to launch a £100 million move for Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Christian Eriksen, although Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino is said to have made it clear he's against a sale.
Tony Banks of the Daily Express reported PSG had an offer in the works to try to land Eriksen, but after signing no players of his own this summer, Pochettino has told chairman Daniel Levy not to sell his chief playmaker.
The Premier League transfer window closed last Thursday, meaning Tottenham won't be able to sign a replacement until the winter if they did sell, with the Ligue 1 window still open until August 31.
The Daily Star's David Woods wrote that Real Madrid are also interested if they lose former Spurs star Luka Modric. The Croatian is attracting interest from Inter Milan and is said to favour the move.
Luring Eriksen away from Tottenham will be a challenge for Real or PSG, though. Sportswriter Andrew Gaffney isn't paying much attention to exit rumours:
PSG and Real are two of the few teams who could afford to tempt Spurs into a sale, but the former's finances have fallen under the microscope of European football's governing body, UEFA, following the signings of Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.
UEFA announced in June that it had cleared the club of wrongdoing but then said in July that PSG's transfer activity would remain "under close scrutiny," per BBC Sport.
A big-money move for Eriksen could therefore attract more attention regarding their expenditures, with the Dane already back to his usual standards in the Premier League, per Statman Dave:
Banks noted Eriksen is still yet to sign the contract extension offered to him by the club earlier this summer, with his current deal scheduled to expire in the summer of 2020.
Tottenham worried some supporters by failing to make any signings this summer—the first Premier League club to do so since the transfer window was introduced in 2002—but commentator Kevin Hatchard allayed fears:
Kevin Hatchard 🎙⚽️ @kevinhatchardBar the novelty of a new signing, I don't really get why #thfc fans are fretting so much. Kane, Eriksen, Alli, Vertonghen, Lloris all still in the building as well as a lot of other key players, which shows Spurs aren't the selling club they once were. #ucl football again too.
Eriksen was purchased from Ajax in 2013 for just £11 million, a price that looked good five years ago and now looks all the better value in the new transfer market landscape that's emerged in the past year.
Spurs will hope to see him follow the lead of certain other high-profile team-mates and sign a new deal in north London, but PSG and Los Blancos will hold out hope for a summer purchase until that's the case.