Tottenham’s transfer window: Will Pedro Porro be the new Adama Traore?

Tottenham fans have developed something of a loathing for transfer windows, but some of their recent dealings have been highly impressive.

It goes without saying that if they can do deals as good as last January’s transformative moves for Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski, they’ll be laughing.

Right wing-back still looks like an area of need — can Spurs finally plug that gap?

What did Tottenham spend in the last three January windows?

2020: £69.6m ($91.87m)

2021: £0

2022: £15.86m ($21.25m).

If those figures look odd, bear in mind the 2020 one includes the fee to make the loan signing of Giovani Lo Celso permanent, and 2022 does not include any payment for loanee Kulusevski.

How much money is likely to be available this month?

It is far from unusual at Tottenham for transfer windows to start with the club not planning to spend significant money, before finding some as players become available.

So it is difficult to put a firm figure on how much there is in the kitty. The early indications are that they will not throw huge amounts of money around this January, but that will always depend on who they can get. Remember last January they ended up buying Bentancur and taking Kulusevski on a loan plus option deal at the end of the window.

Coach Antonio Conte said on Friday that “if there is the opportunity to strengthen the squad, we will do something”, but reiterated that any signings would be consistent with the club policy: signing “young players” and not players on “big salaries”.

“We have to sign players that can stay in our vision, the vision of the club,” he said.

Who makes the key decisions over signings?

Good question. Conte obviously has his own ideas on signings and is not shy about making them known in private, or even in public.

Tottenham also have a managing director of football, Fabio Paratici, who has a good record over the past 18 months in landing players he is familiar with from the Italian market. He can point to the signings of Cristian Romero, Kulusevski and Bentancur as proof he knows what he is doing. And then there is chairman Daniel Levy, who has his own input on arrivals.

When the three work together, it can be very effective: Conte and Paratici have persuaded Levy to sanction deals that he would never have gone for in the past, like paying 33-year-old Ivan Perisic £180,000 per week or handing Everton an initial £50million for Richarlison, both this past summer. But equally, there are times when it does not: when Djed Spence arrived from Middlesbrough in the same window, Conte wasted no time in telling people the full-back was a “club signing”.

He referred to this decision-making triumvirate in his Friday press conference, saying that in every club there is a head coach, sporting director and owner who discuss signings, and that he would “give advice” to the club on “the way to improve the team, and to improve the quality in the squad”.

Which position is the priority?

Tottenham have failed to sign an elite right wing-back for too many transfer windows.

They tried to get Adama Traore from Wolverhampton Wanderers in the summer of 2021 and again last January without success. They got Emerson Royal instead last year and Spence in this one but Conte only trusts Royal and even his performances have not been at the required level this season.

Given that Conte plays a wing-back system where so much of the creativity comes from out wide, it is difficult to see Spurs going another window without adding in that area. That said, if signing an elite right wing-back in the January transfer window (without throwing Manchester City/Paris Saint-Germain type money at it) was so easy, well, they would have done it 12 months ago.

One more creative player would not go amiss, given how Tottenham struggled when Kulusevski was out injured in the first half of this season. They looked at various attacking options at the very end of the summer window but none of them ever materialised into anything.

It might be that they have to lose a player before they can add another.

Who are plausible targets?

The most prominent name linked with the club for this January transfer window is Pedro Porro, a Spain international who plays right wing-back for Sporting Lisbon. He is surely the best player in Spurs’ target position available next month and would give Conte and Paratici the player they have wanted for so long. The problem is that Sporting do not need to sell Porro and there are no indications yet that they will price him in such a way that Tottenham can buy him. If they choose to price him out of a January move then there is not much Spurs can do.

If Porro is impossible then the club may be forced to look closer to home. And if they want someone who has played in this position, knows the Premier League and knows them, what about a possible return after three years with Southampton for Kyle Walker-Peters? It might sound unlikely, but he would be an upgrade on what they have — particularly in the final third — he would be easier to sign than Porro and he could slot straight in.

Who could be heading out?

The fact Spurs are likely to need, or at least want, to sell before they buy is the biggest indication this could be a quiet month in their part of north London. Their most saleable fringe players (Lo Celso, Tanguy Ndombele, Sergio Reguilon et cetera) are out on loans until the end of the season, meaning the most likely outgoings will be further such deals.

Bryan Gil, Japhet Tanganga and Spence have played 11 minutes of Premier League football between them this season, and could all feasibly be farmed out for the remainder of the campaign if the right clubs come along.

Conte did not look especially convinced by any of them in the first half of the season, even though Gil did feature a bit more in the Champions League.

Which World Cup star would be perfect for your club?

Josko Gvardiol’s performances at centre-back for Croatia underline why he was a target at left centre-back last summer, but his World Cup form has probably only moved him further out of Tottenham’s price range. Equally, Achraf Hakimi showed exactly why his old Inter Milan boss Conte is such a fan, but a move for the Morocco right wing-back would appear fanciful — which is a shame considering how he could transfer this team.

The World Cup also showed everyone why Conte and Paratici were so interested in Sofyan Amrabat last year, given how he controlled games for Morocco from the base of midfield. Although Spurs are now quite well-stocked at that position.

But if they want someone else who can create chances from out wide and work as hard as Conte needs, how about Argentina’s Rodrigo De Paul?

(Main photos: Getty Images)