Toby Alderweireld wanted his Tottenham salary tripled to £150,000-a-week before the contract stalemate that means he could leave the club for £26million in the summer, according to the Times.
The newspaper moot the possibility of the defender being brought back to the negotiating table with the Spurs hierarchy on the back of an impressive season and a month after the club triggered an option to extend his current agreement until 2020.
The Times report Alderweireld has rejected two offers to extend his current £53,000-a-week deal and that he wanted a release clause inserted into a fresh agreement.
OPINION
Most Spurs fans have long given up hope of Alderweireld staying beyond this summer, when plenty of elite clubs will be queuing up to trigger the release clause inserted in his contract by the recent extension. He blows out 30 candles on his birthday cake in March, but his form has been such this season that he once again looks one of Europe’s outstanding centre-backs and a player Spurs can ill afford to lose. Tottenham’s 3-0 Champions League win over Borussia Dortmund demonstrated Mauricio Pochettino is not short of quality centre-backs, spreading four of them across a new look back line on Wednesday, while Ben Davies and Eric Dier can also fill in with aplomb at the back. But Alderweireld is the best of the lot, makes fewer errors than any of them and has an all-round game that makes him a hugely attractive target. He is also brilliant on the ball, and his long-range passing is the stuff of legend among Lilywhites who idolise him.