Tottenham Hotspur have reached agreement on the signing of Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United for a guaranteed fee of \u00a385 million (\u20ac98 million, $112 million), a move that reports say beat Manchester United to the Portugal international. The deal follows weeks of speculation and comes after United were reportedly unwilling to match West Ham\u2019s valuation.<\/p>\n
Fernandes, who played every Premier League game last season and recorded four goals and four assists, has four years remaining on his contract at West Ham. He has chosen to join Roberto De Zerbi\u2019s project in north London and is expected to be integrated into a crowded midfield group.<\/p>\n
De Zerbi\u2019s options already include Conor Gallagher, Rodrigo Bentancur, Pape Matar Sarr, Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall. Reports indicate the Sweden international has expressed a desire to leave, but Tottenham have no intention of selling him. Meanwhile, Yves Bissouma is leaving as a free agent and Joao Palhinha returned to Bayern Munich after his loan spell ended.<\/p>\n
On paper Tottenham are not without question marks. Spurs barely fended off relegation last season, finishing 17th in the Premier League for the second season in a row. Fernandes brings versatility, playmaking, a wide passing range and a high work rate, and he is described as prepared to do the dirty work in midfield. Those qualities are likely why De Zerbi pursued the 23-year-old.<\/p>\n
For Manchester United, the loss of Fernandes is a further complication to their midfield recruitment. Casemiro left Old Trafford as a free agent this summer and United have already agreed a deal for Atalanta midfielder \u00c9derson, which is not yet finalised. Having missed out on Fernandes and Manchester City bound Elliot Anderson, United must return to the market to find another midfielder to join Kobbie Mainoo in the engine room.<\/p>\n
Fernandes will now arrive at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with expectation that he will help the club restore its standing among the Premier League\u2019s leading teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tottenham have agreed a guaranteed \u00a385 million for Mateus Fernandes, beating Man Utd in the race…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15911,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1669,172],"tags":[1081,983,1637],"class_list":["post-15912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london-football","category-epl","tag-adaptation","tag-agents","tag-assists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}