Spurs race to land “sensational” £40m ace who’s like Havertz

It’s an exciting time to be a Tottenham Hotspur fan as the club look well-placed to go into Ange Postecoglou’s second season in charge of the club.

They’ve already secured the services of the exciting Archie Gray, won their first two preseason games by an aggregate score of 7-1, and are seemingly still in the race for the brilliant Eberechi Eze.

However, to ensure that Postecoglou can realise his aims in the coming campaign, Daniel Levy and Co. must bring in more talented players over the coming weeks.

The good news is that recent reports suggest they’re trying to do that, with the latest name touted for a move to the club a Premier League star with an interesting comparison to Kai Havertz.

Tottenham Hotspur transfer news

According to a recent report from Football Insider, Tottenham are interested in Nottingham Forest star Morgan Gibbs-White this summer.

The report claims that, along with the Lilywhites, fellow Premier League side Fulham are also keen on the Englishman, although the most significant obstacle to the North Londoners getting their man may be the price, not the competition.

The story has revealed that to sell the versatile attacker, the Tricky Trees will only accept offers in excess of £40m until the deadline. This suggests that their asking price may well increase once the window reopens, and considering his £80k-per-week deal runs until 2027, that wouldn’t be too surprising.

In all, while he’d cost a lot, bringing Gibbs-White to N17 this summer is a great idea, and while the Lilywhites faithful may feel differently, comparisons to Havertz after last season are certainly not a bad thing. .

How Gibbs-White compares to Havertz

Now, the first thing to note is that Gibbs-White and Havertz are obviously not identical players, but there are some apparent similarities between the pair, the first being their positional versatility.

For example, throughout his career, the Forest ace has played games in nine different positions on the pitch, the most common being attacking midfield, central midfield, centre-forward, right-winger, and second striker.

Likewise, when you include his appearances with the German senior team, the Arsenal star has played games in eight different positions in his career, the most common being attacking midfield, centre-forward, right-winger, central midfield and left-winger.

The second primary point of comparison actually stems from FBref, which compares players in similar positions across Europe’s top five leagues and creates a list of the ten most comparable players for each one in which they conclude that the former Chelsea man is the ninth most similar midfielder to the former Wolverhampton Wanderers ace across those five leagues.

To reach this conclusion, FBref doesn’t use the eye test. Instead, they compare the pair’s underlying numbers and measure how closely they rank in a number of underlying numbers, including assists, passes into the penalty area, live passes, the accuracy of their medium passes, touches in the attacking third, blocks, the number of dribblers they tackle, and even the fouls they draw, all per 90.

However, alongside the comparison to their fierce rivals’ newfound striker, Spurs should be going after the “sensational” Englishman, as journalist Josh Bunting dubbed him, because of his impressive campaign last season.

In 42 appearances, the 24-year-old scored six goals and provided ten assists, meaning he averaged a goal involvement every 2.62 games for a team in a relegation scrap for much of the year – just imagine what he could do under Postecoglou.

Ultimately, while the fee is significant, signing Gibbs-White would be an excellent idea this summer and one that would seriously improve the quality of Spurs’ squad, and while the fans might not like him, the comparisons to Havertz are encouraging.