Tottenham are extremely eager to get shot of Moussa Sissoko this summer, and may even be willing to pay through the nose to do so.
For reasons still unexplained, Spurs handed over £30million to sign Sissoko from Newcastle just 11 short, heady months ago.
In that time, the French midfielder made just eight league starts, contributing precisely zero goals and not an awful lot of anything else while slipping out of Mauricio Pochettino’s reckoning all together.
Indeed, Pochettino has reportedly made it clear he has no plans to reintegrate Sissoko into the first-team mix – leaving Spurs in something of a bind as to what to do with him and the remaining four years of his five-year contract.
According to the Chronicle, Marseille – something of a dumping ground for ex-Newcastle flotsam – are supposedly keen, but are unwilling to go anywhere near as high as the £85,000-a-week Sissoko is currently earning at White Hart Lane.
As a result, Spurs are set to both part-finance Sissoko’s wages AND accept a fee significantly lower than £30m in order to offload him.
Added to that, Tottenham are actually still paying off the aforementioned £30million fee, with two of their agreed £6million instalments still outstanding – meaning that they could end up taking financial hits on three fronts just to move Sissoko on.
In short, it’s been an absolute, unremitting balls-up from start to finish.
That’s what you get when you spend egregious amounts of money on a midfielder whose only discernible talent is running quickly in straight lines.