Tottenham Hotspur want West Ham defender, a good deal?

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Bengaluru, April 23: Jose Mourinho, the self-proclaimed 'Special One', has failed to deliver anything special since he arrived at Tottenham Hotspur as a replacement of Mauricio Pochettino. The north London side, who had a troublesome start to the season, have hardly improved despite the managerial change and face the danger of missing out on Champions League qualification for the first time since 2015.

Therefore, we can expect the Lilywhites to be among the busier clubs in the summer as Mourinho will be desperate to add more quality to his squad.

Spurs have struggled in defence this season which is a bit unlike them and unlike Mourinho as well. So, we can expect Mourinho to be keen on a few big defensive reinforcements in the summer. Spurs defensive stalwart Jan Vertonghen facing an uncertain future makes things worse for the Portuguese maestro. If reports in England are to be believed, the former Chelsea and Manchester United manager has identified West Ham defender Issa Diop as a potential replacement of the outgoing veteran Belgian.

It is claimed that Mourinho is ready to pay a whopping fee of £53 million for the Frenchman's services but the question is, 'Is he really a £53 million defender?'. We will try to find answers to this question in this article.

First of all, the transfer market has become a lot more tricky than it used to be a few years ago, especially in England. With almost every team in the Premier League boasting a strong financial background and lucrative revenue from TV rights, it is getting incredibly difficult to convince the lower clubs to sell their best players. Therefore, the market is becoming more and more inflated.

£53 million might sound a bit too much for a player who plays for a team sitting 16th in the table, but we cannot forget that the same team have splashed £45 million for Sebastian Haller a year back. In fact, Diop himself was signed in 2018 for £22 million which was itself a big deal back then. In addition to this, Spurs and West Ham are local rivals which make the negotiation more difficult.

Transfer fees hardly mean anything these days. If you really fancy a player, you should go ahead and sign him for whatever the price. That is how it works nowadays. Diop is just 23 years of age and if Spurs do manage to sign him, he can be a long-term prospect at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. And, if Mourinho rates the defender, the Spurs hierarchy should not be too concerned about the price tag and back the manager.

Unlike most managers these days, Mourinho is a fan of old-school defenders and Diop is certainly one of them. The Chelsea boss, throughout his career, has been an excellent judge of talents, especially the defensive ones and Diop is exactly the kind of defender he loves to have in his team. Mourinho previously described the Frenchman as a 'monster' in defence. With a huge frame of 6 ft 4 in, the 23-year-old is truly an intimidating figure at the back and has a no-nonsense approach in his game as well.

Most teams these days use their centre-backs to dictate the tempo of the game which is why we can see defenders like Virgil van Dijk, Aymeric Laporte, John Stones and a much more average passing accuracy of 90% or even more. Diop is certainly not gifted with such excellent eye for a pass which is evident from his passing accuracy of 78.8%. Although, that is not too bad for a 16th-placed team who hardly dominates the game and he can certainly achieve better numbers at a club like Spurs where he will see much of the ball.

One of the areas where Diop does excel is in the air. The 23-year-old has won 2.7 aerial duels per game doing justice to his huge frame. The Frenchman has averaged 1 tackle, 1.7 interceptions and 5.3 clearances per 90 minutes this season from which we can understand that he likes to play it safe. West Ham are having a difficult season and it is pretty clear that they would have struggled a lot more if not for the 23-year-old.

The Frenchman is also naturally very fit. He has not missed a single game with injury since November 2016 and any manager in the world would love to have such a tremendous athlete. He is also a natural leader and was named the skipper of Toulouse at the age of 21. Diop might not be a like for like replacement of Vertonghen but can still prove to be a more than decent addition to Spurs.