Journalist Dean Jones has revealed that Antonio Conte was the driving force behind Tottenham’s interest in Pedro Porro, and that the Italian and his coaching staff believed the 23-year-old ‘could transform’ the club’s season.
After weeks of negotiations with Sporting Lisbon, which had more than its fair share of hiccups, Spurs finally got the Porro deal over the line on transfer deadline day.
It was certainly a show of trust by the club in Conte, with the Lilywhites paying a £5m loan fee with an obligation to buy at £39m while also forgoing 15 per cent of Marcus Edwards’ sell-on clause (Sky Sports).
In addition, to make way for the right-back, Tottenham offloaded summer signing Djed Spence on loan and terminated Matt Doherty’s contract, thereby forgoing a transfer fee for the Irishman, who had 18 months left on his deal.
Jones believes that the Porro signing is not comparable to Spurs’ capture of Spence in the summer, with the journalist backing the Spaniard to feature regularly over the coming months.
When asked about Tottenham’s deadline day signing, Jones told GiveMeSport: “I mean, obviously, they haven’t put all this effort into him for no reason.
“I don’t think this is the same as Djed Spence when they put months of work into signing him and then he was never seen.
“I mean, this isn’t; that was more of a club signing, where this was somebody [Porro], I’m told it was very much a Conte signing and a man that the management team felt could transform their season, so I do expect to see him soon.”
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What was also clear is that Paratici had abandoned his usual approach of negotiating for multiple players in each position. It seemed like the Spurs hierarchy threw all their eggs in the Porro basket and were determined to ensure that Conte got his first-choice right wing-back target.