Football transfer expert Fabrizio Romano has revealed that Spurs boss Antonio Conte is a big fan of Italian-Nigerian Destiny Udogie, who they eventually signed instead of Pervis Estupinan this summer.
Earlier in the window, Spurs had signed Ivan Perisic on a free transfer to add more quality to the left wing-back position after the Croatian’s contract with Inter Milan ran out.
The 33-year-old was brought in to compete with Ryan Sessegnon for a place in Conte’s starting 11 this season. And just last week, Spurs agreed a fee of £18m, including add-ons, with Udinese for Udogie.
Conte is a big fan of Udogie
Although the North London club loaned the 19-year-old back to the Serie A club for the 2022/23 season, Conte remains a big fan of the young talent.
The Italian journalist made this pronouncement on the Here We Go Podcast, saying; “Udogie is a signing for the future, he’s signed the contract and will join next summer, he’s going back on loan to Udinese now. Let me say that behind the scenes why Tottenham decided to sign Udogie now.
“They had the possibility to sign Estupinan from Villarreal who is joining Brighton, but they went for Udogie because Antonio Conte is a big fan of this guy.
“(Fabio) Paratici has been following him since he was at Verona, before Udinese, and he knows that many important clubs in Italy, Juventus and Inter, were following Udogie, so he wanted to sign Udogie immediately.”
On the other hand, Estupinan, who was on Tottenham’s radar earlier this summer for the same position, has joined Brighton for a £15m fee from Villarreal, with the left-back replacing Marc Cucurella, who joined Chelsea earlier this summer.
Osimhen not upset about substitution
Napoli striker, Victor Osimhen, has played down reports of being unhappy at being withdrawn in the Partenopei’s 4-0 win against Monza in Serie A on Sunday.
Osimhen scored his second goal of the season in the game on Sunday but was substituted in the 86th minute for Adam Ounas.
“It’s nothing to do with the change, but I wanted to motivate the team even more,” Osimhen told DAZN.
“It was a great performance, I’m proud of how the team started from the first minute to the last.”
Napoli and Osimhen will face Florentina in their next league game on Sunday.
This article was most recently revised and updated 2 years ago