Video Evidence: If Spurs sign Yann M’Vila for €12m it would be daylight robbery
With Spurs fans yearning for a new striker, with moves for Emmanuel Adebayor and Leandro Damiao reportedly inching closer, the long running saga of whether Luka Modric will leave and who replaces the Croatian if he does, continues.
Duncan Castles reports in The National today that “Tottenham Hotspur are pursuing Yann M’Vila as a potential central midfield replacement for Luka Modric. The young France international has been made available by Rennes, and Tottenham have proposed a transfer fee of €12 million.”
For most of the summer Spurs have been linked with Joao Moutinho, the Portugal playmaker who played under Spurs boss Andre Villas-Boas at Porto. In fact, AVB watched the Portuguese Super Cup final, won by Porto on Saturday night.
But Porto want a fee for Moutinho that is not far off the one Spurs will likely receive for Modric. So Tottenham are scouring Europe for a midfielder and seem to have centred their search on Ligue 1.
Tottenham scouts reportedly watched Toulouse’s Etienne Capoue on Friday night and M’Vila is a midfielder in a similar mould. Long linked with Arsenal, the latter has been a fairly well known name in England for some time now.
Over the course of the past season M’Vila’s stock plummeted somewhat with off the field problems, injuries and a failure to break into the French starting XI at Euro 2012.
Just 22, he has everything to succeed in English football. At 6.0ft tall and well built he should adjust with no problem to English football.
Despite his undoubted physical abilities, it is M’Vila’s passing that makes him a potential replacement for Modric. In March 2010 he set a new record for France, notching a 92.5 pass completion rate against Luxembourg and he also claimed the Ligue 1 record in 2010/2011 against Valenciennes.
M’Vila may not have scored for two seasons but has the physical attributes and passing range to be one of the top midfielders in Europe. As long as Villas-Boas can get him motivated and injury-free.
When you consider Jack Rodwell is set to sign from Everton for Manchester City for a fee of around 20 million pounds. It would be daylight robbery if Spurs can secure one of the top talents in Ligue 1 for half that amount.
The above should all come with a very large caveat that M’Vila wants to move to a Champions League side and he remained non-committal this weekend, saying: “If I must stay another year or more, I will stay. If I must go, that’s life. But if I stay here, I will be 100 per cent concentrated.”
Video evidence of Yann M’Vila in action below.
