I mentioned this yesterday in an article that was talking mostly about Eli Junior Kroupi, but Portugal international and AC Milan wide forward Rafael Leao is linked with a potential move to Tottenham Hotspur. His agent, Jorge Mendes, is apparently working feverishly to get his client out of Milan and to the Premier League, and he’s been offered to Spurs as an escape hatch.
According to two Italian media sources — Corriere della Sera and Gazzetta dello Sport (as reported by SportWitness) Mendes has
offered Leao to Tottenham twice, and Spurs having him on a list along with Kroupi and Manchester City’s Savinho. Milan are said to value Leao at €60m (£51.5m), which means Spurs can probably negotiate that down a bit, and Mendes is also open to the possibility of a loan plus obligation deal for his client. There’s the thought that if Spurs wait until closer to the end of the window they might be able to get Leao for an even bigger discount.
Rafael Leao is one of the more absurdly talented players in Europe. He’s no longer a young guy — he’s 27 now — but on his day he has skills and abilities that make him incredibly exciting. He’s an exceptional dribbler and has the ability to both score and assist teammates, when he’s on his game. The problem with Leao is that he has flaws equal to his skills, and those mostly involve concerns about his motivation and work rate. He’s coming off of a down year at Milan (referred to in the article as “a shadow of himself”) and has never scored double-digit goals since the 2022-23 season when he tallied 15G+8A. That could be just his lack of motivation after many years at Madrid, and his desire to get a fresh start. But it’s a somewhat troubling pattern.
Look, when Leao is on, he is ON. We saw glimpses of that just last night as he assisted Gonçalo Ramos with a lovely cross into the box for what turned out to be the winning goal over Croatia in the World Cup. But there are real concerns about his downsides, he can be an exceptionally frustrating player to watch, and I’m really unsure what the balance is between his reported transfer fee and those downsides. He’d also be taking a step up in competition by moving from Serie A to the Premier League. Maybe that, plus Roberto De Zerbi, is enough to motivate him into finally evolving into his enhanced Pokemon form, but it’s a risk.
That said, Spurs are the kind of club that can, and maybe should, take a chance on a player like Leao. Both he and Milan are ready for a separation, but SportWitness says at present the only real interest in him is coming from Turkey, and he’s not interested. Would I take him over someone like Kroupi or Savinho? Boy, I dunno. It might depend on the price. There are tremendous upsides to signing him and it’s a high profile transfer, but a move like that could also backfire spectacularly and I have no idea which way it might go, if not both.
To be fair, there aren’t many indications that Spurs are seriously considering making an offer for Leao at the moment, but he apparently IS on a list of possibilities. It might take some time to figure out which direction Spurs wants to go and whether they think they can fix him, or if it’s better to go after someone young with potential like Kroupi and Savinho.
