Tottenham Hotspur and Daniel Levy are reportedly locking horns with the Aston Villa hierarchy over star player Jack Grealish, with the Villans reportedly demanding in the region of £30-£40m.
Villa, who failed to get promoted via the play-offs after losing out to Fulham, are widely known to be facing considerable financial difficulties, with reports suggesting they need to sell over £50m of players to be FFP compliant ahead of the 2018/19 season.
Levy is a notoriously shrewd negotiator, and is expected to use Villa’s tricky position against them in a potential deadline day deal, with the Midlands side’s hierarchy fully aware they must sell players to raise mandatory funds, and the departure of Grealish holds an air of inevitability around B6.
A youth product from Villa Park and a player of raw ability, Grealish has well and truly come of age in the 2017/18 campaign, in part due to the calming, positive influence of John Terry, though also due to Grealish increasing in physical stature and scoring some truly outstanding goals, most notably a last minute winner against Cardiff at Villa Park as the race for promotion hotted up towards the end of last season.
Grealish, an England international after switching his allegiances from Ireland, can play as a 10, as a wide player or even as a false nine, and this versatility will have unquestionably proved attractive to Mauricio Pochettino as he goes in search of players to boost the depth of his squad and the quality available to him.
Written by Tom Newman.
