Midfielder Tielemans still on our radar

TRANSFER TALK

Midfielder Tielemans still on our radar

Tottenham are continuing to take an interest in 19-year-old (20 next May) Anderlecht central midfielder Youri Tielemans but have yet to table a concrete offer. There was plenty of talk back in March of us being willing to pay £15-million plus add-ons for the exciting prospect.

There is talk of Tottenham bringing one more central midfielder, if he can be persuaded to come and if a deal can be done, but later in the window. That would suggest the player wishes to keep his options open and that he hasn't made a decision to come to Spurs yet. hardly something daniel Levy can be blamed for but you can bet your bottom dollar some will misinterpret things that way.

In the meantime, we'll continue to monitor exciting prospects and wait for an opportunity to arise when everything comes right for us to be able to sign them, if that happens. It's how we conduct transfer business. We follow a huge number of players, hundreds of thousands (Manchester City have 40 coaches watching 380,000 players) and wait until conditions are right, the last year is something all clubs look for.

Youri Tielemans is another Belgian with Champions league experience for his Belgian club and he is attracting the particular interest of Italian side Roma this window. We are not the only two clubs watching him of course, half of Europe is keeping an eye on him to see how he develops and whether he keeps improving.

The dual footed Belgian Under-21 player us under contract until 2020. He has played 47 games as a defensive midfield player scoring 2goals with 6 assists. he has played 41 games as a central midfield player scoring 8 goals with 4 assists. He has played 14 games as an attacking midfield player scoring 3 goals with 2 assists. He has played 4 games on the left of midfield scoring 4 goals, 1 game at left-back in which he had an assist and 1 game on the right of midfield.

Just one of the players we are watching for now.