As expected, I woke up this morning to the summer’s first Tottenham Hotspur BOMBA — Tottenham and Leeds United have, according to David Ornstein, fully agreed a deal to sign 18-year old utility midfielder/defender Archie Gray. The deal is for six years in length, through the 2030 season.
The fee is supposedly £35m, which is a LOT for an 18-year-old with only one year of experience in the second division of English football, but the fee is also offset by what is likely to be a separate transaction that will send Joe Rodon back to Leeds permanently for around £10m. That makes the total outlay for Gray about £25m — still a lot, but potentially a good buy for a player who could turn into a star.
Interestingly, there are also reports now that Gray had a purchase clause of £35m that kicked in when Leeds didn’t promote to the Premier League. That might explain the collapse of the Brentford deal; as stated, Brentford triggered the clause but apparently couldn’t come to an agreement for terms with Leeds and the deal collapsed. Spurs must have offered more favorable amortization terms.
Gray played a lot of right back for Leeds last season and is practically tailor-made to be an inverted fullback in an Ange Postecoglou system, but most Championship watchers have his long-term future at defensive midfielder, and that feels about right. I have a hard time believing that he’ll displace any of Spurs’ current midfield options, but with Tottenham in Europa he’ll get plenty of minutes either in reserve or as a backup/rotation option. I can easily see him getting at least 800 minutes of football next season, more if he’s better than advertised.
This is not the player we thought we were signing, and I do wonder if this ends Tottenham’s pursuit of Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher. But Archie Gray gives Tottenham a very young core of midfielders along with Pape Sarr and Lucas Bergvall, who joins the club officially today.
We’ll wait for the official tweet from the club, but it’s sure looking like Spurs have their first signing of the summer. Let’s go!