As confirmed by the Guardian among many other outlets, Newcastle have finally agreed a fee to take Andros Townsend off Tottenham’s hands this morning.
It’s understood that Daniel Levy was holding out for £14million after knocking back Newcastle’s original £10million offer last week. That was until Mauricio Pochettino personally intervened and begged the Spurs chairman to take the money and run, with Townsend amassing a cumulative total of just 64 minutes of first team football this season.
As such, a compromise has now been reached reached and Levy has reportedly sanctioned a £12million move “in principle”. Personal terms are currently in the process of being hammered out, but the transfer is now scheduled to go through in the next 48 hours.
Townsend chose to announce his imminent departure with a fairly pithy old farewell Tweet…
Been an absolute pleasure playing with the u21 boys the last 3 or 4 months! ⚽️👊🏽 pic.twitter.com/twToa07moe
— andros townsend (@andros_townsend) January 25, 2016
After so long spent going stale in reserve team purgatory at Spurs, it’s difficult to imagine Townsend making an instant impact at St James’ Park – though at £12million, the pressure is definitely on to come in and at least inject a bit of energy into a Steve McClaren side that tends to chug rather than purr.
We suppose if there’s anything Townsend does have in abundance it’s energy. Lord knows his actual game can be severely one-dimensional at times…
Remember when Andros Townsend cut in from the right + fired wide? It was almost as good as the time he cut in from the right + fired over.
— Who Ate All The Pies (@waatpies) January 26, 2016
Still, fingers crossed. He’s only 24 (yep, we couldn’t believe it either) and there’s still plenty of salvageable talent there.
Best of luck to him.