It's been a good summer for Tottenham Hotspur so far this year, with the exciting signings of youngsters Archie Gray and Yang Min-Hyeok already in the bag and four wins out of four, including a thrilling 4-3 victory over the K-League XI yesterday.
However, the Premier League will be back underway in just over two weeks, and with the teams around them strengthening, Spurs must bring in more first-team-ready stars to help Ange Postecoglou fulfil his goals.
Fortunately, reports indicate that Daniel Levy and Co have been hard at work in the market and could be about to pull off an exciting hijack of a major deal for a player who has won comparisons to the Lilywhites' own Pape Matar Sarr in the past.
Tottenham Hotspur transfer news
According to a recent report from Football Insider, Tottenham are planning to hijack Atlético Madrid's signing of Conor Gallagher.
The report claims that Chelsea are still seeking an offer in excess of £40m, which would be more than the £33m bid they have supposedly accepted from the Madrid-based side, per sources in Spain via BBC Sport.
As things stand, transfers expert Fabrizio Romano has reported that the player's decision now is whether to move to Spain or remain in England, meaning the Lilywhites still have a chance to hijack the deal with that higher offer, per Football Insider's exclusive report.
It would be a complicated transfer to get over the line, and a potentially unpopular one at that, but he proved his talent last season, and the fact that he's been compared to Sarr in the past is further evidence of his quality.
Why Gallagher would be a great signing and his comparison to Sarr
Okay, so before we look at a couple of the reasons why Gallagher would be a great addition to Spurs' squad, let's first take a look at this comparison to Sarr and where on earth it's come from, as we can imagine it's left a few of you scratching your heads.
Well, it primarily stems from FBref, which compared players in similar positions in the Premier League last season, created a list of the ten most comparable players for each one, and concluded that, in this case, the Lilywhites ace was the sixth most similar midfielder to the Chelsea man across the entire league.
While the most obvious comparison to make is their position, FBref came to this conclusion by examining their respective underlying numbers and highlighting the metrics in which they ranked very closely, including but not limited to non-penalty expected goals plus assists, actual non-penalty goals, progressive carries, passing accuracy, passes into the penalty area, goal-creating actions, interceptions, and ball recoveries, all per 90.
However, while the comparisons to the incredibly gifted Senegalese midfielder are certainly a bonus, they're clearly not the sole reason for signing the "irreplaceable" Englishman, as Glenn Murray described him on Match of the Day.
For example, while he's proven himself to be a valuable player at the heart of the Pensioners' midfield, thanks to his boundless energy and desire to disrupt opponents, he has also shown that he can influence proceedings at the sharp end of the pitch.
In his 50 appearances last season, he scored seven goals and provided nine assists, meaning he averaged a goal involvement every 3.12 games for the Blues. This haul of 16 goal involvements would have made him the joint-second most productive player for the North Londoners.
Ultimately, while there is understandable resistance to signing him from some Spurs supporters given his connection to Chelsea, Gallagher is a talented midfielder and would likely thrive in a Postecoglou system, and while this deal still feels unlikely, Levy and Co should go all out to bring him to N17 this summer.