Clauses, verbal agreements and smoke signals. Will Hugo Lloris stay at Spurs this summer or not?
THE HUGO LLORIS affair is not quite a saga just yet – but it is heading that way.
Last summer, when Spurs surprisingly signed the Swansea No.1 Michel Vorm, eyebrows were raised among the North London club’s faithful and beyond.
The widely-held view was that Vorm’s arrival meant it was only a matter of time before Lloris was off.
The feeling was that the Dutchman coming in meant – despite the French No.1 signing a new five-year deal – Lloris was preparing for just one last season at White Hart Lane before moving on if the North Londoners failed to make it yet again into the Champions League.
Spurs dismissed that idea out of hand at the time, and have gone on to do so all season.
In the last few weeks, however, a rash of rumours have emanated out of France suggesting the existence of clauses in contracts and verbal agreements that, again, Lloris will be able to move on now that Tottenham are not in the top four. Again, Spurs maintain it is all nonsense.
We appear to have been here before with Luka Modric.
Again, to be fair to Tottenham, they insist Lloris is happy and that even he is laughing off these rumours.
The truth may start to unfold if a firm, realistic bid goes in to Manchester United from Real Madrid for David De Gea. And if De Gea wants to go.
Or if Paris Saint Germain come in to Spurs to offer Lloris the chance to play Champions League football.
Because the French No.1 has made no secret of the fact that European football’s elite club competition is where he wants to be.
And the easiest thing in the world for a footballer of any club to do when the money isn’t down is laugh off the rumours.
If the bids do come in when the season ends in three weeks’ time, however, what then?
These are tricky times for Tottenham. Despite his reputation Chairman Daniel Levy is these days far from the autocratic, intransigent control freak that he is often painted as.
He is listening – and working – with fans groups, keeping them as abreast of his plans as much he can.
He has also, more importantly, given the final veto over transfers to boss Mauricio Pochettino, who is working closely with head of recruitment Paul Mitchell.
Levy trusts them. And he is ready to support them in the transfer market.
If Lloris is sold, however, it would represent a PR disaster both for the chairman and the club. It would undermine Tottenham’s claim that they remain ambitious and are looking to move to the next level.
Let’s not kid ourselves, every club knows that to attract – and to keep – elite players they need to be playing in the Champions League.
It is why, regardless of the criticism of their style of play, their supposed lack of a philosophy and everything else that has been getting peoples’ underwear in a twist, Louis van Gaal’s brief has simply been to get United back into the top four.
That is where the best players want to be. And a club with a top player that isn’t in there is vulnerable.
To surrender Lloris this summer, however – despite the £25-30million fees being bandied about – would confirm what everybody suspected when Vorm arrived 10 months ago.
It remains to be seen whether they were right.
