Football agent, Andrea Pellegatti, has named Tottenham Hotspur’s capture of Emerson Royal from Barcelona as the most difficult deal of this summer’s transfer window.
Tottenham announced on transfer deadline day that they had reached an agreement with Barcelona for the transfer of Emerson Royal for a fee of £25.8m.
Reports indicated that Emerson initially wished to stay at the Camp Nou and fight for his place in the starting eleven but chose to join Spurs after holding positive conversations with Fabio Paratici and Nuno Espirito Santo.
Tottenham also allegedly offered both Tanguy Ndombele and Serge Aurier to Barca as part of the Emerson deal but the Catalan club are thought to have rejected the chance to sign both players.
Emerson made his first start for Spurs against Crystal Palace on Saturday and, although he coped reasonably well with the threat of Wilfried Zaha down the left, the right-back would have hoped for a better result than an embarrassing 3-0 loss.
Pellegatti, who worked as an intermediary in Emerson’s transfer to Spurs, has now admitted the deal was quite challenging to get over the line.
When asked what the most difficult transfer of the summer was, the agent told Tuttomercatoweb: “At the brokerage level, that of Emerson Royal to Tottenham from Barcelona.
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“Both for the timing and for the figures on the table between the companies and then it closed on 31 August.”
Spurs Web Opinion
Perhaps the challenging nature of pushing through the Emerson deal in the final couple of days of the window is why Spurs decided against moving for a central midfielder or a forward before the window slammed shut. I expect Paratici to prioritise strengthening those two positions when the window reopens in January.
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