Villareal Turned Down Spurs' Record-Breaking Bid for Giuseppe Rossi

Tottenham Hotspur boss Harry Redknapp loves transfer deadline day, and tried to get involved again in the latest window with a last ditch £35 million monster bid for former Manchester United forward Giuseppe Rossi.

The deal would have more than doubled the club record fee of around £16m, paid for Luka Modric.

Rossi has gone from strength to strength since leaving Old Trafford, and is now a regular for Italy and the main man at the third-best team in Spain, Villareal.

His latest strike, the only goal in a 1-0 win against Espanyol, defied logic.

However, a £35 million price tag would leave him, alongside Andy Carroll, as the joint eighth most expensive player of all time, above the likes of David Villa and Dimitar Berbatov.

However, unlike Newcastle, Villareal were not tempted by the offer, meaning that they value Giuseppe Rossi at more than £35m.

It is well-known that Manchester United have a first option clause in Rossi’s contract, enabling them to match any accepted bid for Rossi and have it automatically accepted, but there is no way we would even consider paying that much for him.

This wasn’t a problem for Redknapp or Spurs, however:

“Daniel [Levy] always said that if we found the right player then we would have gone for him but it was difficult,” Redknapp said. "He tried something with Rossi. I think he offered £35million in the end. It’s hard to get top players unless you pay top money. You couldn’t get Rossi because Villarreal don’t want to sell you him.”

That’s not surprising when you consider that the Villareal side, currently doing so well in Spain, lacks any real stars, with Brazilian forward Nilmar and Spain reserve Santi Cazorla amongst their other top names. That said, they previously sold Diego Forlan for megabucks and replaced him directly with Rossi.

One theory doing the rounds is that Spurs were bidding for everyone they laid their eyes on, just to keep their fans happy, explaining why they also reportedly made enquires about the aforementioned Forlan, Sergio Aguero, Fernando Llorente and Karim Benzema.

Speaking of the Frenchman, another theory is that Spurs were trying to force Real’s hand in the market, leading to Benzema becoming available to them for a knock-down fee, much like Rafael van der Vaart did in the summer.

Whatever the plan, it will now have to remain on ice until the summer.

I’m not sure how genuine, but it’s a sign of Spurs ambition that they were at least trying to make something happen in the transfer window. Redknapp needs a top striker and top defender to really turn Tottenham into title contenders, and, as has been his way for years, it looks like he’s going to worry about the forwards before he gets involved in signing defenders.