Big win for Andre-Villas Boas and Tottenham Hotspur today as they have signed Gylfi Sigurdsson from Hoffenheim for £8m.
The 22-year-old attacking midfielder impressed so much during the second half of last season on loan at Swansea where he scored seven times in 19 appearances for the Welsh side and picked up March’s Player of the Month award.
Sigurdsson had looked to turn his successful loan spell into a permanent move after Swansea settled on a record-breaking £6.8million fee with Hoffenheim.
The Swans also announced that personal terms had been agreed, but when Brendan Rodgers moved to Liverpool the move to Swansea fell apart and Sigurdsson was expected to join Rodgers at Liverpool. But Spurs chairman Daniel Levy and AVB obviously did a great selling job on Spurs and Sigurdsson is heading to London.
The signing of Sigurdsson is the clearest indication yet from Spurs that Luka Modric and Rafael van der Vaart will be sold this summer, as Sigurdsson can easily step into role of either player.
By all accounts the next seven weeks will be a busy one at White Hart Lane as various newspaper reports say that AVB has been giving a transfer kitty of around £40m plus any monies that Spurs receive from selling players.
With Modric, van der Vaart and potentially Jermain Defoe all available for the right price, Spurs could spend close to £100m on new players this summer.
Potential areas where AVB could be looking to add new players is:
- Goalkeepers (Friedel can’t go on for ever and Gomes is not the answer)
- Center Back (cannot rely Ledley King)
- Two Central Midfielders (Sigi in one)
- Two Strikers (Adebayor or will AVB go for someone else?)
The big question is whether this will be enough to close the gap on the Man City, Man United and Chelsea?