Football.London’s Alasdair Gold has revealed that Bournemouth’s deadline day signing Illya Zabarnyi was ‘really liked’ by the Tottenham hierarchy.
Two new faces arrived through the door at Hotspur Way during the January window, with Arnaut Danjuma joining on loan from Villarreal and Pedro Porro arriving from Sporting Lisbon on deadline day.
The Times reported on Monday that Tottenham Hotspur were considering making a late move for a central defender but that did not materialise in the end.
One centre-back who was on the move on Tuesday was Zabarnyi, with the highly-rated young defender competing for a £24m switch to the Vitality Stadium.
It was reported during last summer’s transfer window that the 20-year-old was on Tottenham’s radar (Football.London).
Gold has now confirmed that Antonio Conte’s men did indeed have their eye on Zabarnyi, with the journalist stating that Spurs had scouted the Ukrainian ‘extensively’ before he made the switch to the Cherries.
Spurs Web Opinion
I suspect that the reason Spurs did not sign a centre-back this window was that the club’s top targets were not on the market. I think it is pretty clear by now that Conte prefers players who are proven at the top level (like Bastoni) rather than an up-and-coming talent like Zabarnyi. The Ukrainian would have likely been identified by Paratici and his network of scouts but I doubt if he would have been at the top of Conte’s wishlist.
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