The Premier League is just over two weeks away, and while Tottenham Hotspur have looked good so far in pre-season, they still need to strengthen to ensure Ange Postecoglou can lead them up the table this year.
The club have been linked to a plethora of talented players this summer, from Eberechi Eze to Jonathan David, but at the moment, the only signings Daniel Levy and Co have made have been Archie Gray and Yang Min-Hyeok.
However, that could be about to change, as recent reports have revealed that the club are making progress towards signing an incredibly talented attacker who has been compared to Dejan Kulusevski in the past.
Tottenham Hotspur transfer news
According to a recent report from Football Transfers, Tottenham have maintained their interest in Pedro Neto and have 'intensified their efforts' to secure his services this summer.
The report claims that the Lilywhites have now held further talks with the winger, who remains high on Postecoglou's wish list this summer.
A potential fee for the £50k-per-week star is not mentioned in the story, but previous reports from this month indicate that he could cost as much as £50m to £60m.
From a purely financial perspective, that might be too high a fee for Spurs to stomach, but considering how talented Neto is, maybe Levy and Co should splash the cash a little bit on this one - his comparison to Kulusevski is just a nice bonus.
Why Neto would be a great signing and his comparison to Kulusevski
Okay, so before we look at Neto's impressive output and why he'd be so good for Spurs, let's first examine this comparison to the Lilywhites' Swedish international and where it came from.
Well, aside from their obvious positional similarity, this comparison stems from FBref, which compared all attacking midfielders and wingers in the 2022/23 Premier League season, created a list of the ten most comparable players for each one, and concluded that Kulusevski was the most similar to the Wolves ace in the entire competition that year.
The way they came to this conclusion is by looking at their underlying numbers and then comparing how closely they rank in several key metrics, including non-penalty expected goals plus assists, progressive carries, passing accuracy, crosses into the penalty area, through balls, goal-creating actions, tackles won, clearances and carries, all per 90.
However, while it's a nice bonus and interesting to think about, Levy and Co are obviously not going to base their decision to sign the Portuguese star soley on his similarity to the former Juventus ace. Instead, they'll focus on his impressive form last season.
For example, in just 24 appearances for the Old Gold, the Viana do Castelo-born "monster", as dubbed by data analyst Ben Mattinson, found the back of the net on three occasions and provided 11 assists for his teammates, meaning he averaged a goal involvement every 1.71 games.
Moreover, this haul of 14 goals and assists would have made the 24-year-old the fourth most productive Spurs player last season, despite the lack of games he played. This brings us to the one significant drawback in signing him: his fitness, or lack thereof.
Across the entirety of last season, the former Lazio winger missed 23 games for club and country, and while that is certainly something to consider, the upside of him moving to Tottenham is that, with the brilliant wide talent already at Postecoglou's disposal, he may well get more time to rest, thus minimising his injury risk.
Ultimately, Neto is an undeniably talented player who could light up the Premier League with the Lilywhites, and while his fee and injury history are significant, so is the potential upside. Therefore, the North Londoners should push ahead and bring him to N17 this summer, as it may just be a gamble that pays off.