No news of a Spurs scout watching Marega


TRANSFER TALK


When clubs send a scout to watch a player it is normal that the home club is informed that a scout is attending and in Portugal these lists are given to the newspapers, something that perhaps we ought to do over here.

The Sun have dragged up an old story to suggest we are watching 25-year-old (26 next April) Moussa Marega who is on loan at Vitoria Guimaraes from Porto and the tabloid calls him the “Malian Jamie Vardy”.

They also claim that Liverpool are watching him. A previous report in the Guardian suggested Watford, Crystal Palace, Stoke City, Sunderland and Arsenal were also watching him.

Would striker cost £6 or £51m

It should be noted that Tottenham are rare visitors to Portugal since our Iberian scout left so any aching we are doing is via video which suggests we are only at an early stage with him. If he were a serious prospect for the summer than we would have a scout there watching him live, the fact we haven't suggests he has a lot of improving to do before we would become interested.

The Portuguese league is not a top tier league and while there have been some success around Europe with players from Portugal, I'd ask you to name the strikers who have been successful in the Premier League, indeed any player who has come from the Portuguese league straight to the Premier League and been a success.

The Sun go on to tell us he has a £35 million release clause, but as we know release clauses are meaningless, they are just a figure in a contract to try and prevent cubs bidding. You still assess a player and bid what you think he is worth, not an inflated release clause. In Portugal if you ant a wage increase that has to come with an increase in your release clause generally. It is just a protection system, a release clause is not a transfer value.

Previously reported release clauses include £36m (Express), £40m (Sun), £35.5m (L'Equipe), £51m (Caught Offside). From what I have managed to gather it is 40 million euros which is £34.68 million at exchange rates today. He isn't worth anything near that.be

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