Tottenham Hotspur are in talks with Monaco over a deal for defender Serge Aurier – but would Spurs be doing the right thing in letting him go?
FourFourTwo cite France Football in reporting that any deal for the player would be worth somewhere in the region of £15m.
Aurier has found substantial game time hard to come by this season, making just eight Premier League appearances, although he did feature in five of the club’s Champions League fixtures.
The 26-year-old was behind Kieran Trippier in the right-back pecking order, despite the England man having a below-par season himself.
The Ivorian’s athleticism and pace make him comfortable going forwards as well as performing his more traditional defensive duties and he is also known to be physically strong, which is always advantageous as a defender.
What he lacks is something that is a strength of Trippier – end product to supplement his marauding runs forward, although the ex-Bury man has admittedly been off the pace in that department of late.
With Kyle Walker-Peters also at the club, manager Mauricio Pochettino is not short of options on the right-hand side of the defence, and Spurs may benefit from investing time and effort into developing the young Englishman.
On the other hand, keeping Aurier on the books would allow Walker-Peters to go out on loan which would arguably be better for his development.
£15m is £8m less than the £23m Daniel Levy parted with to bring the Ivorian to north London from Paris Saint Germain in 2017, so the club would be making a loss on him.
However, they would find it extremely difficult to find another option who has both international and Champions League experience for that kind of money, so it seems like the best option would be to keep Aurier around and hope that he can perform more consistently next season when given the chance.
