Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Tottenham Hotspur fullback Emerson Royal has been tipped to leave the club when the summer transfer window opens in June. The latest report comes from Football Insider, who claims Emerson (or at least his agent) has been told to “find a new club” and that Spurs would accept a bid of around £20m to let him go.
OK, a couple of things. First, Football Insider is not what we in the business call a “trusted source” for transfer rumors. Do they get some things right? Yes. Are they reliable? …Nnnnnnnnnnnnot really. Second, a lot of their so-called “exclusives” are in reality plucking the lowest-hanging fruit and trying to get ahead of the story. A report stating that Emerson Royal, tipped for a summer exit for months and coming off of what was his worst performance of the season, will look for a new club this summer isn’t exactly news. We know this! All of us would be shocked if he didn’t!
The transfer fee quoted is kind of nice, but I’m also not certain it’s completely accurate either. £20m is a nice amount of cash for a player whom Spurs signed for £25.8m four years ago, and it’d be a healthy “accounting profit” if he actually goes for that amount this summer. And it’s not like Royal is a bad player — he’s actually a pretty good defensive fullback who would be an excellent fit at any number of clubs, just not as an inverted fullback in Ange-ball. But I’m assuming that’s the price for Premier League clubs, considering everyone else in Europe seems to be skint and Tottenham have found it difficult to offload anyone in recent transfer windows. If another Premier League club shows concrete interest in Royal, £20m is a nice fee. If it’s anywhere else in Europe, I bet the actual price ends up less than that.
I guess it’s nice to see an article like this in print because it 100% confirms our priors. Ange Postecoglou has said that change is coming, and he clearly needs upgrades for his fullback depth. I suppose I’m just not ready to get too excited about this particular rumor until there are more specifics attached to it.