Journalist Pete O’Rourke has claimed that Antonio Conte would love to keep Spurs winger Lucas Moura at the club in the summer.
Lucas Moura has been somewhat out of favour this season for Spurs, making just 17 starts in the Premier League and featuring a further 10 times from the bench. This is the Brazilian winger’s fifth season with Spurs and he has failed to start more than 25 times in any of those campaigns.
With the introduction of Dejan Kulusevski on an 18-month loan deal, Moura has failed to start in any of Spurs’ last eight games in all competitions, so the Brazilian it could be argued that his game time will be restricted throughout the entirety of the Swede’s loan deal.
O’Rourke told to GiveMeSport he believes that Conte would love to keep him despite his lack of starts.
He said: “Conte would love to keep him around the place, but if he’s not playing in that team on a regular basis, it’s going to be harder and harder to keep him.”
TIF Thoughts on Pete O’Rourke’s comments…
Lucas Moura has struggled to find any form of this campaign, which has led to his game time becoming reduced. In the Premier League, Moura has a goal every 778 minutes, he has an average of 0.4 shots on target per game, and makes an average of 1.1 key passes per game, as per Sofascore.
Interestingly, Alasdair Gold described Lucas Moura as a potential sale for this upcoming summer and Carlton Palmer has stated that he believes he won’t be happy not playing right now, but it seems as if the attacker has still got the full backing of his manager. Although, his backing won’t be enough to keep him should he decide that he wants to seek a new challenge that involves regular playing time.