After a long summer of international football, preseason friendlies and non-stop rumours, the transfer window finally comes to a close tomorrow night.
Tottenham Hotspur have enjoyed a relatively successful window thus far, with youngsters like Archie Gray and Wilson Odobert giving fans a reason to be hopeful about the future and statement signings like Dominic Solanke giving them a reason to be excited about the here and now.
However, while the North Londoners might have put their feet up at this point in the past, content with the business they’d already completed, reports suggest Daniel Levy and Co could be set to make at least one more surprise signing.
In fact, the latest star touted for a move to N17 has won comparisons to an incredibly talented but rather disliked player among the Spurs faithful, Gabriel Magalhães.
Tottenham Hotspur transfer news
According to a recent report from transfers expert Ben Jacobs on the Last Word on Spurs Podcast, Tottenham have been interested in Bayer Leverkusen star Jonathan Tah in the past.
Jacobs explains that the German defender was discussed at the club under former managing director Fabio Paratici and that while nothing has materialised for the player yet this summer, he could still move.
The good news is that the fee required to secure the player’s services likely wouldn’t be an issue for the North Londoners, as Sky Sports Germany reporter Florian Plettenberg confirmed yesterday that Leverkusen are looking for about €30m, which converts to about £25m.
However, according to plenty of reports, the bad news is that German behemoths Bayern Munich are also incredibly keen on the player, meaning it could take a lot of convincing from Ange Postecoglou and Co to get Tah to move to N17 before 11pm tomorrow.
That said, the 28-year-old is an incredibly gifted centre-back who is well worth fighting for, and the fact that he’s been compared to Gabriel can only be a good thing, despite how the fans may feel about the Brazilian.
How Tah compares to Gabriel
Okay, so before we get into some of the reasons why Tah would be an excellent signing for Tottenham before the window closes, let’s examine this comparison to Gabriel and where it comes from.
So, it primarily stems from FBref, which compares players in similar positions across Europe’s top five leagues, the Champions League and Europa League, creates a list of the ten most comparable players for each one and, in this case, has concluded that the Brazilian is the seventh most similar centre-back to the German.
Now, there are obviously some aesthetic similarities between the pair due to them both being tall defenders known for their ability to bully smaller opponents. But to understand why FBref considers them to be so similar, you have to take a look at the underlying numbers in which they rack closely, such as progressive carries, shots and shots on target, short and medium passing accuracy, shot-creating actions, and aerial duels won, all per 90.
However, while the comparison to a player who made it into the most recent PFA Team of the Season should certainly encourage Spurs that the Leverkusen ace is the right defender to go after, there is another reason he’d be an incredible signing: his experience.
Last season, the 6 foot 5 “battleship”, as dubbed by former teammate Christoph Kramer, made 48 appearances for Die Werkself – 45 of which were starts – as they won their first-ever Bundesliga title and the DFB Pokal without losing a single domestic game all year. In fact, the only game they lost last season was the Europa League final.
Moreover, the Hamburg-born veteran has won 29 senior caps for the German national team, so he clearly has the ability and mentality to play at the very highest level, and while there is plenty of competition at centre-back in the Spurs squad, he’d help raise the floor massively.
Therefore, while it might be challenging to pull off so late in the window, Tottenham should act on their longstanding interest in Tah and bring him to North London before the clock strikes 11pm tomorrow.
