The thrilling news that Tottenham Hotspur was in active talks to sign promising 18-year-old attacker and all-around dribbly boy Antonio Nusa of Club Brugge was brought to you a while back. Then there was radio silence. Bat Country only heard nonstop rumours that the teams were still in negotiations, not any actual, hard news. There hasn’t even been that much in the last few days.
It appears that there is a rationale behind that. David Ornstein of The Athletic published a shocking revelation today stating that Club Brugge and Brentford had come to an agreement for Club Brugge to sell Nusa for more than €30 million.
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Though Brugge’s recent radio quiet may have been due to him trying to open up Nusa’s recruitment in order to obtain a better deal, my assumption is that he was in negotiations with Spurs. Relocating to a team like Brentford further implies that Nusa may view this as a stopgap before joining a major league team at the top of the game and Brugge.
Here’s where things gets strange, though. This tweet was posted by Belgian journalist Tomaz Taecke, who was the first to reveal Tottenham’s interest in Nusa.
The English #BrentfordFC joins the battle for Nusa. The offer is currently insufficient and lower than what #THFC in particular wants to pay – an amount that is now approaching 35 million euros. Also #NUFC is gradually becoming concrete for the Norwegian
This tweet has me a little perplexed because it’s unclear if Taecke is alluding to the “insufficient” offer that Brentford made and Spurs were offering more, or if Tottenham is just paying too much for the skin now not the game. If the latter is the case, Spurs supporters should have faith in Johan Lange and his new recruiting staff because they have a solid track record thus far and have demonstrated time and time again that they can effectively switch to other options when their main target is out of their price range (do you remember Micky van de Ven?).
