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Juventus have signed Guglielmo Vicario on an initial season-long loan from Tottenham.

The agreement also includes an £8.5m (€10m) option to buy the Spurs goalkeeper permanently.

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Juventus had previously been targeting Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez but cooled their interest after a £8.5m offer was rejected by the Premier League club.

Villa's valuation and Martinez's ongoing injury issues, including a knock to his finger, then led to Juventus turning their attention to Vicario as talks regarding a return to Italy, after joining Spurs from Empoli in 2023, intensified.

Sky Sports News reported in June that Vicario was expected to leave Spurs, with Antonin Kinsky their first-choice goalkeeper.

Martinez's Villa future in doubt

Villa have agreed a £29.9m (€35m) deal with Parma to sign goalkeeper Zion Suzuki, who Juventus were also targeting on loan if he completed a move to Paris Saint-Germain.

Suzuki's proposed move to PSG stalled and gave Villa fresh encouragement to move for the Japan World Cup star.

The pursuit of Suzuki now leaves Martinez's future at Villa in doubt. His current deal at the club is set to expire in 2029.

Speaking on August 5, a representative of the player told Sky Sports News that he was happy at Villa and was looking forward to the new season.

The Argentina World Cup-winning goalkeeper has never asked to leave Villa Park, even amid interest from Manchester United last summer and Juventus and Inter Milan this summer, according to Gustavo Goni of agency Universal TwentyTwo.

Martinez will only leave with the blessing of Villa and if a deal suits all parties.

Villa appear to be moving on - will Martinez?

Sky Sports' Patrick Rowe:

"Another transfer window, another saga involving Emiliano Martinez. The goalkeeper looked certain to leave last summer amid interest from Manchester United but that move failed to materialise.

"He remained at Villa Park and his legacy at the club continued to build. The two-time Yashin Trophy winner and 2022 World Cup winner played through an ongoing finger injury to help win the Europa League and continued to perform at the highest level in the top flight.

"Only Gianluigi Donnarumma and Matz Sels had higher save percentages than Martinez (70.7 per cent) last season and while there are no doubts about his ability, his future in claret and blue raises an interesting question.

"When links to an exit emerged last summer, the succession plan looked unclear. Marco Bizot arrived and performed well as an understudy but after agreeing a £29.9m deal to sign Japan goalkeeper Zion Suzuki from Parma, it points to a club pulling the trigger on the heir to Martinez's throne between the sticks.

"It is hard to imagine a goalkeeper of his quality operating without the certainty of being first choice. It is equally as difficult to imagine a club parting ways with just under £30m, as well as beating off competition from PSG and Juventus, to sign Suzuki without first-team opportunities readily available.

"Villa have navigated a summer of change in the transfer window and replacing Martinez is arguably the greatest task of them all. For six years, he has been a reliable and often heroic option for the club to lean on in goal.

"The key question that needs answering now Villa appear to have moved on is will Martinez follow suit, with a move to Juventus now off the cards given their recruitment of Guglielmo Vicario?"

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"A lot of people questioned it," Scott Chickelday tells Sky Sports. "Those same people are now looking at it and thinking, hang on, we might have got a bit of a bargain here." Such has been the start that Will Lankshear has made to his Middlesbrough career.

Boro paid a fee that could rise to £20m to sign the young striker from Tottenham and have been rewarded with a volleyed winner against Wrexham on debut in the Carabao Cup and a brace to turn around their Championship opener against Lincoln.

Striker coach Chickelday, who has done one-on-one finishing work with Lankshear for the past two years, is far from surprised. He works with top Premier League players but rates him as the best finisher of the lot. "He has got all the finishes in the book," Chickelday explains.

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"He has got the little flicks around the corner, tap-ins, headers, volleys. Just an all-round No 9 and there are not many around at the minute. His finishing is incredible. I tell people and they laugh at me, but this boy is the closest thing I have seen to Harry Kane."

It is a big claim to compare the 21-year-old hopeful to Kane, who has scored more goals for England than any man in history, the reigning holder of the European Golden Shoe. But others see it too and there are parallels in their route, trajectory and attitude.

Like Kane, not all of Lankshear's loan moves away from Spurs were instant hits. A move to West Brom ended without a goal. But things went better on a personal level at Oxford even as the club suffered relegation from the Championship.

"Oxford was a big step for Will. He had gone out on loan before and it had not quite worked out," Matt Bloomfield tells Sky Sports. Bloomfield was the man who took over as head coach of Oxford in January with the club one place off the bottom of the table.

He was soon impressed by Lankshear, the young forward tasked with leading the line for a struggling side. It demanded different qualities from him. "He worked incredibly hard for us, left everything out on the pitch," says Bloomfield. The experience improved him.

"With very limited senior football behind him, he just needed help to round his game off. We were out of possession a lot so it was about being in position when we won it back. We did a lot of work on his hold-up play and being a nuisance when we cleared the ball."

In context, Lankshear's total of 11 goals in the Championship last season was an encouraging effort. "In a team that got relegated, that is some going," says Chickelday. "It is tough when you are down there." At Middlesbrough, he will be able to show more.

"He is in a totally different environment now," agrees Bloomfield. "Middlesbrough will dominate the ball and that will suit him even more with the opportunities that they create. He is born to score goals. He is obsessed. All he wants to do is train and score."

That is where those Kane comparisons return. There is that same laser-like focus on maximising his ability. "He is a lovely lad but he has got an edge to him," says his old boss. "He wants to be successful. All the top players are single-minded and driven."

Bloomfield adds: "He has a massive natural instinct but you can see the hours of practice too. It is the same with Harry Kane and his goals. It is not just natural instinct. These guys are born goalscorers but they also work so incredibly hard at their craft."

The stories from his time at Oxford illustrate this clearly. When training was over, Lankshear wanted to keep going. "He would just stay out there finishing all day. We had to push him back in the building. We had a game the next day and needed his legs."

With that in mind, Bloomfield is not surprised to discover that Lankshear has been working with a one-on-one coach to do those extras. Even Chickelday has become used to the youngster who reached out to him for help doing extras on top of the extras.

"He does not just turn up, do a session and go. He will get there 40 minutes before the session starts, do a warm up and then do the hour with me. Then they will stay for another 25 to 30 minutes doing running after the session. That shows you his mentality."

Lankshear attends these sessions alongside older brother Alex, who scored himself for Gateshead at the weekend. But what does he actually work on? "It is a lot of repetition work, match scenarios. Headers, volleys, finishes from cutbacks. All types of finishes."

Chickelday adds: "Did you see the one that he scored for Oxford from outside the box?" He is referring to the second of Lankshear's goals against Sheffield Wednesday in April. "It was the typical Kane finish where he cuts in and bends the ball into the top corner."

It is a trademark. "He likes to drift out on the left and cut inside. But whatever he can do on his right foot, he can do on his left. That is what gives him that unpredictability when he is finishing as well. He does not mind which way that the defender shows him.

"It is his ruthlessness in front of goal and his consistency in hitting the target. His shots-on-target ratio is phenomenal. In our sessions, he rarely misses the target at all. I am not saying that he is scoring with every single shot but he does work the goalkeeper."

Bloomfield's point about having the dedication to match the talent is key - and the reason why there is such excitement about Lankshear. He can score great goals but there are the near-post runs, the ones where he follows in to capitalise on a fumble.

Among the 72 players in the Championship last season who had 50 shots or more, Lankshear ranked third for expected goals per shot. Even at Oxford, he was getting high-quality chances because of the work that he was putting in. There is more to come too.

"He never gets to take them but he is a really good free-kick taker," says Chickelday. He is convinced there are great things ahead. "Sometimes you come out of the session and you are like, this one is special. You just get that feeling." But can he explain why?

"It is his mentality. He wants to be the best. He wants to be the No 1 striker in England. And then obviously he wants to be the No 1 in the world too. And I really would not be surprised in two years' time if he is Harry Kane's replacement.

"I do not want to talk about moves at the minute because Middlesbrough will probably kill me. He has only been there five minutes. But I think he is two moves away from being a £100m striker if he keeps developing and doing well - and I think he will."

That is for the future. The present is about firing Boro to the Premier League. One way or another, those who know him are certain that is where Will Lankshear is heading. "I have absolutely no doubt about that," adds Bloomfield. "Will is going to the very top."

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Juventus have agreed a deal with Tottenham to sign Guglielmo Vicario on an initial season-long loan.

The agreement also includes an £8.5m (€10m) option to buy the Spurs goalkeeper permanently.

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Juventus had previously been targeting Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez but cooled their interest after a £8.5m (€10m) was rejected by the Premier League club.

Villa's valuation and Martinez's ongoing injury issues, including a knock to his finger, then led to Juventus turning their attention to Vicario as talks regarding a return to Italy, after joining Spurs from Empoli in 2023, intensified.

Sky Sports News reported in June that Vicario was expected to leave Spurs, with Antonin Kinsky their first-choice goalkeeper.

Martinez's Villa future in doubt

Sky in Italy reported Villa agreed £29.9m (€35m) deal with Parma to sign Japan goalkeeper Zion Suzuki, who Juventus were also targeting on loan if he completed a move to Paris Saint-Germain.

Suzuki's proposed move to PSG stalled and gave Villa fresh encouragement to move for the Japan World Cup star.

The pursuit of Suzuki now leaves Martinez's future at Villa in doubt. His current deal at the club is set to expire in 2029.

Speaking on August 5, a representative of the player told Sky Sports News that he was happy at Villa and was looking forward to the new season.

The Argentina World Cup-winning goalkeeper has never asked to leave Villa Park, even amid interest from Manchester United last summer and Juventus and Inter Milan this summer, according to Gustavo Goñi of agency Universal TwentyTwo.

Martinez will only leave with the blessing of Villa and if a deal suits all parties.

Villa appear to be moving on - will Martinez?

Sky Sports' Patrick Rowe:

"Another transfer window, another saga involving Emiliano Martinez. The goalkeeper looked certain to leave last summer amid interest from Manchester United but that move failed to materialise.

"He remained at Villa Park and his legacy at the club continued to build. The two-time Yashin Trophy winner and 2022 World Cup winner played through an ongoing finger injury to help win the Europa League and continued to perform at the highest level in the top flight.

"Only Gianluigi Donnarumma and Mats Selz had higher save percentages than Martinez (70.7 per cent) last season and while there are no doubts about his ability, his future in claret and blue raises an interesting question.

"When links to an exit emerged last summer, the succession plan looked unclear. Marco Bizot arrived and performed well as an understudy but after agreeing a £29.9m deal to sign Japan goalkeeper Zion Suzuki from Parma, it points to a club pulling the trigger on the heir to Martinez's throne between the sticks.

"It is hard to imagine a goalkeeper of his quality operating without the certainty of being first choice. It is equally as difficult to imagine a club parting ways with just under £30m, as well as beating off competition from PSG and Juventus, to sign Suzuki without first-team opportunities readily available.

"Villa have navigated a summer of change in the transfer window and replacing Martinez is arguably the greatest task of them all. For six years, he has been a reliable and often heroic option for the club to lean on in goal.

"The key question that needs answering is Villa appear to have moved on - but will Martinez follow suit with a move to Juventus now off the cards given their pursuit of Guglielmo Vicario?"

Tottenham Hotspur supporters have already seen Roberto De Zerbi keep their team in the Premier League. They have noted his passion, warmed to his enthusiasm. But De Zerbi ball had to wait. Now, Spurs must be ready to embrace the real thing.

It starts from the back. And the most obvious conduit to help his ideas take shape is Jan Paul van Hecke. The Dutchman has been brought in for £52m from Brighton not just because of his talent but because he is already au fait with De Zerbi's unique approach.

That matters because the full-fat version of his football can be complicated, even for professionals. Lewis Dunk, the erstwhile centre-back partner of Van Hecke at Brighton, has been open about feeling utterly lost during the first weeks of De Zerbi's time there.

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Having spoken about this to Anatoliy Trubin, De Zerbi's goalkeeper at Shakhtar Donetsk, he talked of his team-mates almost having to unlearn all that they had learned about football up to that point. "He opened a new way of playing," Trubin told Sky Sports.

James Milner thought he had seen everything football could throw at him, having been coached by Terry Venables and Sir Bobby Robson as a youngster before winning the Premier League under Manuel Pellegrini and Jurgen Klopp. But De Zerbi was different.

Speaking to Milner, he talked of De Zerbi helping him to understand "how a team plays and why it happens" like no manager that he had worked with before. "He wanted each player in this exact position and to time their movements," Milner told Sky Sports.

"Finding that free man and how you do that is something that you have maybe done a lot in your career but not realised you were doing it. And then, [working with De Zerbi] pieces together exactly how that works and gives you a deeper understanding again."

It will have been a hectic pre-season for his players, particularly those expected to build the play. Because what might look like free-flowing football from back to front is the product of prescribed movements developed through constant repetition in training.

The rules can be strict. "I remember one situation, I played a good ball, but it was not the way how we need to do it and he screamed a lot," recalls Trubin. "So he demands, he wants, that everyone knows their role, how we need to play, one idea from the team."

It is not just the right movements but the right timing of them. As Dunk has explained, the Brighton players knew every scenario, where the pressure would be arriving from, and how to create the passing lanes that would open up the pitch to beat that pressure.

All of which is a long-winded way of pointing out why Van Hecke, now 26 years old and with over 100 Premier League appearances to his name, is more than just a fine player in his prime. He is an essential figure if De Zerbi is to get his ideas across quickly this season.

Adjusting to this bravery that is required on the ball is not straightforward but that is among Van Hecke's best assets. In last season's Premier League, he ranked second for passes from open play and second for accurate switches of play. Volume and range.

His progressive passing, playing through the pitch as well across it, is much admired by De Zerbi, who has praised the balance between arrogance and confidence in Van Hecke's distribution. He is not afraid to play the difficult pass that breaks the lines.

"He is a strong, intelligent centre-back who is brave in possession and plays with personality," said De Zerbi upon his signing. "Those are important qualities for the way I want our team to set up." But it is how he gets into those positions that is interesting.

There is an aspect of Van Hecke's game that makes him truly unique, even among the elite players in the Premier League. Indeed, in terms of output, he is even more of a statistical outlier than Erling Haaland. And it all comes down to one particular metric.

Van Hecke is a ball carrier. And not just by the standards of centre-backs. Van Hecke carried the ball up the pitch on 597 different occasions in the Premier League last season. His nearest rivals in the competition were Declan Rice, Bernardo Silva and Jeremy Doku.

Now, when it comes to those carries that were pressured by an opponent, Doku was just ahead of Van Hecke. Understandably so. Teams are more likely to allow a defender to bring the ball up the pitch than a winger playing in a far more advanced position.

But this only highlights the gulf between Van Hecke and every other defender in the Premier League even more. He had 315 pressured carries, which was 133 more than any other centre-back in the competition. He simply does it differently to the rest.

The upshot is that Van Hecke carried the ball 10.66 kilometres with the ball at his feet over the course of last season. That is over four kilometres more than anyone else and twice as far as everyone bar the England defensive duo of Marc Guehi and Ezri Konsa.

Supporters will notice the difference. With Marcos Senesi similarly forward thinking with his passing, and Van Hecke committing opponents like nobody else, a team is being constructed that can play through the thirds. After saving Spurs, De Zerbi ball is back.

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Inter Milan have completed a £30m deal for England defender Djed Spence from Tottenham.

Sky Sports News understands the agreement includes a 10 per cent sell-on clause.

The full-back was given permission to travel to Italy on Friday for a medical as negotiations between the two clubs continued. A deal for a total package of £30m has now been reached.

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Spence was a star of England's third-place finish at this summer's World Cup but was likely to find his opportunities limited at Spurs in the coming season, with Pedro Porro the first-choice right-back and Destiny Udogie, Andy Robertson, Souza and Ben Davies all able to play left-back.

Inter have been looking for a new option at right-wing-back and turned their attention to Spence after struggling to strike a deal for Al Ittihad's Moussa Diaby.

Spence had three years left on his contract at Spurs, with an option for a further year, but was keen on the move after enjoying a six-month loan spell with Genoa in Italy from January 2024.

Spurs signed Spence from Middlesbrough in a deal worth up to £20m in July 2022.

The defender took to X to pen a farewell to the club, writing: "A special chapter comes to an end.

"It's been some journey, with plenty of memories, moments and experiences that I'll carry with me for forever, especially that night in Bilbao.

"Thanks to all the staff members who've helped me along the way, the players who've become family and most importantly thank you to the fans.

"It's time for a new chapter, but Spurs will always have a place in my heart. COYS!!"

Spurs already eyeing Spence replacements

Sky Sports News' Mark McAdam:

"Spence is a player Spurs fans will say they have seen his brilliance in flashes. You saw his brilliance at the World Cup with England.

"They may also think it is frustrating. They paid £12.5m for him from Middlesbrough in 2022, a deal that Daniel Levy did. They are getting more than two times what they paid for him.

"But they will also say it doesn't feel like a lot of money for a player who could be so important. Spurs have been preparing for this, though, and already have potential replacements in mind."