Tottenham interested in signing Chelsea centre-back Kurt Zouma. Spurs identified France international as an alternative to their primary target, Cristian Romero. Tottenham are ready for a new beginning under the Portuguese manager and will need to address some key weaknesses in the club ahead of the 2021/22 season.
One crucial area is the back-line, where the Spurs lacks an automatic first-choice pairing at centre-back, let alone a leader. With Jan Vertoghen joined Benfica and Toby Alderweireld moved to Al-Duhail, according to a report, Tottenham is now without a reliable senior defender.
Eric Dier has blown hot and cold while Colombian defender Davinson Sanchez has failed to develop as expected. One of the players in the fray is that of Atalanta centre-back Cristian Romero.
Romero was last campaign’s defensive MVP from Serie A and has quickly emerged as one of the top young centre-backs in Europe. Cristian is technically a Juventus footballer on loan at La Dea.
The latter is expected to make the deal permanent and then flip Romero for a hefty asking price of €55m fee. A significant amount, Spurs are considering other options and have now identified the Blues centre-back Kurt Zouma as an alternative.
Zouma is available for a lower price of €25m and already has Premier League experience to boot. More so, Tottenham can also make use of the amount saved to bring in another centre-back, such as Takehiro Tomiyasu and Nikola Milenkovic. Such an approach will give the Spurs strength in numbers.
After all, a complete revamp of the defence is needed if Tottenham are serious about challenging for the top. Kurt has had his ups and downs at Chelsea and started the 2020/21 season regularly.
However, Zouma had to increasingly settle for a place on the bench as the season wore on. This dip in playtime could hint that the German manager is unconvinced by his talents and is seeking a replacement.
A grossly inconsistent footballer, the French defender is not someone who encourages calmness at the defence. His penchant for making errors or often losing the footballer he is marking have proven detrimental to Chelsea over the years.
There are many reasons Zouma failed to make the cut at Chelsea, and Tottenham will, in all likelihood, be dodging a bullet.
While going for the French centre-back could also free up funds to bring in two more defenders, whether any of them are players that the Spurs can build the back-line around is debatable.
