Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy was willing to match Chelsea’s bid and wage offer to Ross Barkley before he joined from Everton earlier this month, according to Football London.
The Trinity Mirror sports site claim that Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino wanted to sign the England international, who, in turn, wanted to play for the Argentine.
Football London report that Tottenham failed to seal a dale for Barkley last summer before he suffered the hamstring injury that prompted him to pull out of a move to Chelsea.
It is said that “something happened this month” for Pochettino to make a U-turn in his stance on Barkley even though Levy made it clear he would have allowed the club to match Chelsea’s bid and wage offer for the 24-year-old.
OPINION
Quite why Pochettino wasn’t willing to green light a January swoop for Barkley is something of a mystery. At £15million, the transfer fee was certainly not prohibitive, even though his likely salary and signing-on fee at Stamford Bridge would surely have been eyewatering. Barkley is yet to play this season, although he was an unused substitute for Chelsea in their 4-0 demolition of Brighton on Saturday, but is ready for action and would certainly improve a Tottenham squad that is high on solid Premier League performers but short on stardust. That much was evident in the absent of the ill Christian Eriksen as Spurs drew 1-1 against relegation strugglers Southampton on Sunday. With half an hour to go, they would have been far more threatening if Barkley could have been summoned from the bench.