Do you know how quiet it is out there on the transfer front? There\u2019s been, like, almost zero news and most of the rumors are dumb. Makes it difficult to write about stuff, even more so because I\u2019m set for a little time off from the blog here in the next week for another cancer-related medical procedure. But let\u2019s talk about one iffy rumor anyway.<\/p>\n
Alan Nixon, a sportswriter and journalist and ersthile of a periodical that we will not name because it sucks, is nonetheless at times strangely reliable with the transfer rumors<\/a>. Most of his good stuff he posts on his Patreon now, which I will not subscribe to. Nevertheless, there\u2019s a new rumor out (via Football League World) that says Sheffield United are interested in making a permanent move for Tottenham Hotspur\u2019s 20-year old central defender Ashley Phillips<\/a>. <\/p>\n Ash hasn\u2019t cracked the first team at Spurs yet but has had a couple of successful loans in the Championship. He\u2019s coming off of a good loan last season with Stoke, and Sheffield United \u2014 who recently dumped Chris Wilder for Ruben Selles \u2014 would like to make him one of their key offseason additions. <\/p>\n Tottenham<\/a> reportedly rate Phillips at \u00a36m, but the report suggests that Thomas Frank isn\u2019t willing to sell, because Frank wants him as part of next year\u2019s squad. Now, there\u2019s some wiggle room in that statement \u2014 unless you count tape, Frank hasn\u2019t actually seen Ash play. That said, it\u2019s not at all surprising that Frank might want to keep Phillips around in preseason to run him through his paces and see if he\u2019s ready to make the step up to Premier League level. If Spurs are rebuffing purchase offers for him, that suggests that at minimum Frank wants to keep him around for preseason, and likely for the tour to Asia.<\/p>\n Now does that mean that Phillips is in Frank\u2019s first team plans. Absolutely not (although… maybe?). I can certainly see a situation where he\u2019d be loaned back out to the Championship again if it doesn\u2019t seem he\u2019s quite ready yet. He\u2019s only 20, and you don\u2019t see may 20-year old top level central defenders (the exception being Dean Huijsen, now at Real Madrid<\/a>).<\/p>\n So stick a pin in this rumor for now. Tottenham clearly have no interest in selling him at the moment, even with a buy-back clause (something I think Spurs should do more of), but that doesn\u2019t mean Ash Phillips won\u2019t move somewhere else this summer. Let\u2019s wait and see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do you know how quiet it is out there on the transfer front? There\u2019s been, like, almost zero…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[49931,748,6702,6701,393,3576,5899,163,4884,34388,79339,2963,1620,75560,75559,25034,16,2739,15,69890],"class_list":{"0":"post-224432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-ashley","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-captain","11":"tag-cartilage","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-for","14":"tag-free","15":"tag-front-page","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-m","18":"tag-phillips","19":"tag-report","20":"tag-sheffield","21":"tag-tottenham-hotspur-transfer-news-rumours","22":"tag-tottenham-hotspur-transfers-rumors","23":"tag-transfer-rumors","24":"tag-uk","25":"tag-united","26":"tag-united-kingdom","27":"tag-want"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114767640082912454","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}