Real Madrid to offer player swap for English International?

Tottenham Hotspur, coming off a 3-2 victory over West Ham at the dead zone known as London Stadium, have a very important midweek match with Apoel Nicosia in the Champions League. Picking up a crucial three points against the Pot 4 club is vital if Spurs want to make the knockout rounds of Europe’s biggest club competition. After that, Spurs have two matches against current European champions Real Madrid. Apparently, Real haven’t gotten them memo that the “partnership” is dead, if Don Balon is to be believed, because we’re already seeing transfer rumors pop up involving Spurs midfielder Dele Alli.

Instead of going to the Google machine to translate, the writers over at Off The Post have a general synopsis of the rumor, which states that Real are willing to offer midfielder Mateo Kovacic as part of a swap deal.

The European champions are said to be eager to lure the 21-year-old England international to the Bernabeu and are ready to offer Mateo Kovacic to Spurs in part-exchange.

Croatia international Kovacic, aged 23, joined Madrd from Inter Milan in August 2015. He has made 78 appearances in just over two years at the Bernabeu, but has struggled to establish himself as a regular starter.

He was rated as one of European football’s top young talents when he left San Siro to make the move to Spain.

Los Blancos are reported to be taking encouragement from Alli’s recent decision to ditch agent Rob Segal and seek new representation as evidence that a transfer could be on the cards.

It’s true that Dele has fired Rob Segal and now has his choice of the lot to represent him, including familiar names such as Jorge Mendes and Mino Raiola. Either of them are power brokers in the world of sports management and will be able to broker a deal for the English International.

The rest of the article is standard transfer rumor speculation. We all know that Dele probably isn’t a Tottenham lifer and the day is going to come where he looks to move to one of Europe’s superpowers, and Real Madrid are at the top of that list. If they want someone, chances are very high that they will get their target, barring a broken fax machine.

The surprise in this rumor is the supposed offering of Kovacic, a player that Real are very high on. Kovacic would be a huge get for Spurs, especially if they’ve resigned themselves to the belief that Dele will want to move on. Player swaps on their own do not happen very often anymore, and let’s be honest: It would take more than Kovacic for Levy to sign off on this, especially with the summer window we just witnessed.

The question is this: How much cash would Levy accept along with Kovacic to sell Dele to Real? I’d say it would be, at minimum, £75m. It might be more! So I’ll ask you, the commenters: What would it take for you to pull the trigger if you’re a Bald Ninja Jedi sitting at Hotspur Way?