South American football expert Tim Vickery has said that Real Betis midfielder Giovani Lo Celso would be a solid addition to Tottenham’s team.
The 23-year-old was sent out on loan to the La Liga side from Paris Saint-Germain last summer, and Betis recently exercised an option-to-buy clause contained in the deal as he scored 16 goals and assisted six others in 46 appearances last term.
Spurs are said by the Daily Mail to have had a bid for the 23-year-old rejected and Vickery – who is BBC Sport’s South American football correspondent and has lived in Brazil since 1994 – said that a move to Spurs would be good for both club and player.
“I’m a huge fan of Lo Celso,” the journalist said on Sky Sports’ Transfer Talk podcast [59:21].
“I watched him on the way up at Rosario Central and he’s got a wonderful left foot, he’s a beautiful picker of a pass. He can split tight defences. He went to Paris Saint-Germain, I think it was the wrong club for him. And they really threw him in at the deep end and they expected him to play a deep role with plenty of defensive duties.
“And that’s something that he simply hadn’t been prepared for and that didn’t work for him. But at Betis he’s done terrifically well and I think he’s too good a player to spend too long at Betis. It’s interesting that he’s been linked with Tottenham, perhaps that’s Tottenham responding to the challenge laid down by Mauricio Pochettino to up their game in the transfer market.
“If he comes in there, you would see him as a kind of Eriksen replacement. But he’s a lovely talent and a player who perhaps at Tottenham would fit into the historic identity of the club.”
OPINION
Vickery is right – Lo Celso would be a great addition to the Spurs team. There has been talk of Christian Eriksen leaving the club this summer, and that may become a reality now that Mauricio Pochettino’s side have lost the Champions League final. Should the Danish international leave, Lo Celso’s stats show he would be the dynamic midfielder this Spurs team needs if it is to continue to thrive further up the pitch. Lo Celso has shown that he can not only score goals – he got 16 of them in the recent campaign – but he can chip in with assists for others too. And he got six assists in all competitions. What’s more, Lo Celso is only 23 and we have seen countless times before how well Pochettino can develop players in and around this age bracket. Overall, the midfielder would be a great signing that Spurs should look to pull off.