DiMarzio: Tottenham and Sevilla agree €30m + Sanchez for Kounde

There’s potentially breaking news in Tottenham Hotspur’s search for a new central defender. I say POTENTIALLY because there’s a decent chance that this rumor isn’t as exciting as what it seems like, or that it could all yet go horribly wrong.

But here’s the gist: Gianluca DiMarzio, on his website, is reporting that Tottenham and Sevilla have agreed a deal for France international defender Jules Kounde, one of Fabio Paratici’s top defender targets. The bid is apparently €30m PLUS Davinson Sanchez.

Woah! Pretty exciting, right? Koude is supposedly rated at around €50m, but Spurs aren’t the only club interested in him and there have been reports that he’s really mostly interested in heading to a club playing Champions League football. And here’s the kicker — the single paragraph that mentions this (part of a huge transfer rumor roundup in Italian) says that Kounde will “think about it.”

That’s cool, Jules. You think about it. We’ll be right over here just minding our own while you make up your mind.

So, this is a pretty exciting rumor, and if it’s true it’s almost too good to be true, and probably means that Sevilla is broke and really needs the cash. However, that’s exactly why I’m skeptical. I know that for this summer I’ve been trumpeting “DiMarzio or it didn’t happen” and it’s not at all crazy to think that Paratici and DiMarzio have some connection between them, but it does seem a bit weird that DiMarzio is breaking a potentially major deal about a French international playing for a Spanish club transferring to an English Premier League team. Not exactly in his primary wheelhouse.

Also, “he’ll think about it” is an awfully big get-out-of-Tottenham-free card. If Kounde really does want Champions League football, a transfer to Spurs is pretty far from that at the moment. Would Spurs be willing to take a pretty huge financial loss on Davinson, a player they spent £40m on just a few years ago? Would Davinson be willing to leave the Premier League for Sevilla?

This would be a good transfer, if it happens! Turning Davinson Sanchez into Jules Kounde would be a pretty neat trick. You never know! But keep your powder dry on this one, at least for a while as my Bullshit Meter™ is pointing at a pretty wacky number.