Tottenham midfield transfer in works all summer crumbles late on as offer deemed ‘not enough’

Fabrizio Romano has revealed Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg will not move from Tottenham to Atletico Madrid under the ‘current conditions’ of the deal, as the La Liga side’s offer is ‘not enough’.

Ange Postecoglou becoming the manager at Spurs has meant for a lot of change. For starters, he’s brought six players in, with the confirmation of permanent deals for Pedro Porro and Dejan Kulusevski bringing that total to eight.

He’s also allowed seven players to leave, three of those – Harry Kane included – on permanent deals. As a result of various moves, some players’ game time has changed – Hojbjerg is one of those players, having played 44 Premier League minutes this season.

Whether or not that’s a massive problem for him is another question. Talks which would see him sign for Atletico Madrid have seemingly been quietly ongoing throughout the transfer window.

A report on July 13 stated the La Liga outfit had already held ‘numerous mini meetings’ with Spurs over the move, and were ‘growing in confidence’ that it would get done.

That confidence surely grew even more when it was suggested Hojbjerg was ‘looking for a new house in Madrid’, with more reports suggesting progress was being made beyond that point.

However, despite things being in the works throughout the summer window, Atletico have seemingly fallen at the final hurdle. Transfer insider Romano states ‘at current conditions’ the deal ‘will not happen’ as their offer is ‘not enough to convince Spurs’.

It was previously reported that Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy had asked for approximately £38.5million from Atletico to let Hojbjerg move there.

It’s not mentioned how much they have now offered, but it’s likely it was below that. That report surfaced months ago, so they surely knew an offer below that price would not be accepted.

Perhaps the La Liga side were chancing their arm given that it’s the final day of the window, in hopes that Spurs would accept given the frantic nature of deadline day.

It’s been suggested they were interested in a loan deal, but if so, they again surely knew that wouldn’t be accepted.

In any case, they’ll currently not be able to acquire Hojbjerg’s services unless they lodge a better offer, and with the clock ticking down, they’ll have to hurry if they’re wanting to do so.

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