Spanish news outlet, Mundo Deportivo reports that Tottenham Hotspur have taken an interest in out-of-favour Barcelona midfielder, Andre Gomes. Spurs are joined by a number of outfits, all keen to sign the central midfielder. The La Liga giants are reportedly asking for a fee over £30m for the 24-year-old midfielder whose contract is set to run for another three seasons.
Gomes has made 31 appearances for the Blaugrana and is clearly unsettled in the club’s ranks since making his switch from Valencia in the summer of 2016. He has struggled to hold down an important role in the Barca first team and is currently behind the likes of Sergio Busquets, Paulinho and Ivan Rakitic in the pecking order.
This has led to plenty of speculations over the Portuguese’ future as Valverde looks to bolster the club ranks ahead of the 2018/19 season. Gomes arrived at the Camp Nou for a £29.3m transfer fee and ever since then, he has mostly been chosen as a sporadic option.
He was supposed to be a long-term successor to Busquets but failed to replicate the defensive midfielder’s elite standard of performance. Paulinho has also given Valverde a different dynamic to experiment with and has earned a very prominent role in the Barca squad.
Gomes has so far registered 78 appearances for the La Liga champions during which he had scored 3 goals and made 4 assists. He came out of the Mestalla with a lot of promise, with all the right traits to succeed in the Blaugrana ranks.
The 24-year-old has bags of talent under his boots and is capable of being a team’s central figure from midfield. He started out in the Benfica youth ranks and was even capped 37 times for the Portugal youth sides, ranging from the U17s to the U21s.
He was also heavily involved in his country’s 2016 Euro Cup win and now has 29 caps to his name. However, marked by his lesser involvement for Barca, Fernando Santos has dropped Gomes from the Portugal senior team, giving precedence to Bruno Fernandes, Adrien Silva and William Carvalho.
Gomes is still only 24 and has the years in front of him to fulfil all his early promise. He could certainly use a change in footballing climate which Tottenham will be able to provide.
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Mauricio Pochettino has already brought in Wilmar Barrios and is looking for a Mousa Dembele replacement. While Gomes might not be the exact replica of the Belgian ace, he can certainly carve out a spot behind Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen.
