According to The Telegraph Mousa Dembele wants a three-year extension to his contract and it threatens to further complicate the clubs desire to find an agreement with the Belgian midfielder.
The article says the Belgian cast doubt on his Spurs future by revealing he will not discuss extending his current deal until after the World Cup and leaving open the possibility that this could be his final campaign at the club.
His contract will only have 12 months remaining at the end of this season and Mauricio Pochettino is desperate to keep the man he has hailed “a genius.”
The article adds that Dembele realises this is likely to be his last big contract and wants a minimum three-year extension, which would take him to 2022, when he will turn 35 that July.
Dembele’s injury record has been suspect and the article adds that it would represent a big risk for Daniel Levy to agree to a pay increase that would effectively run for four more years from this summer.
It goes on to say that Spurs are also aware that Dembele has interest from Europe, and in particular Italy, following his superb Champions League performance against Juventus in Turin.
He is thought to earn in the region of £80,000-a-week, having signed his current Tottenham contract in January 2016, and he is likely to seek an increase to around £100,000-a-week.
MORE SPURS STORIES
It adds that unlike some of our rivals, we do not have any rules on only offering one-year extensions to players aged 30 or over – largely because we only have four players in that category – Dembele, Hugo Lloris, Jan Vertonghen and Fernando Llorente.
It goes on to say that Llorente will be allowed to leave for the right price in the summer but Lloris and Vertonghen are expected to sign new long-term Tottenham contracts in the coming months, along with Pochettino, Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen and Heung-min Son.
It is important to recognise that Dembele has also made it clear that he is currently happy at Tottenham and his situation is viewed differently to that of Toby Alderweireld, who is almost certain to leave the club at the end of the season.
Keep up to date with all the latest Tottenham news and opinion by following SpursWeb’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
