Forget McKennie: Paratici can sign Spurs’ next “monster” in “best player” at World Cup – opinion
Tottenham Hotspur have been linked with another Juventus star, this time France midfielder Adrien Rabiot, ahead of the January transfer window…
What’s the word?
According to Calciomercato, Spurs chief Fabio Paratici is prepared to make the 27-year-old, who is currently excelling at the World Cup in Qatar, one of the club’s highest-paid players as he battles Premier League rivals Arsenal and Chelsea to his signature.
It’s thought that the Italian supremo is a big admirer of the Frenchman, having signed him for the Old Lady back in 2019.
Rabiot nearly left the Allianz Stadium during the summer window after Juve accepted an initial €20m (£18m) offer from Manchester United.
His £148k-per-week deal is currently set to expire at the end of the season, so next month is the last chance that the Serie A giants can garner money from a sale.
Spurs’ next midfield monster
Paratici is no stranger to swooping in on his old club and ultimately, he’s earned the trust to do so, given the success of Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur in N17.
Both players were regarded as underperforming and something of a flop in Italy, only to quickly become fan-favourites in a Spurs shirt. Rabiot, meanwhile, has endured quite a controversial career thus far but as we’ve seen in Qatar, he clearly has all the right credentials to be another success story.
Once described as an “absolute monster” by French football journalist Robin Bairner, the Les Bleus enforcer has averaged a 7.35 rating on France’s way to the quarter-finals; also per Sofascore, Rabiot has scored once, averaging 1.8 shots per game as well as managing 2.5 tackles and 1.3 interceptions per game too.
One-time France international and ex-West Ham United star Frederic Piquionne likened Rabiot to Emmanuel Petit and suggested he had been the “best player” at the tournament.
Indeed, as arguably the surprise package of the World Cup, the 6 foot 2 powerhouse is currently Massimiliano Allegri’s highest-performing player in the Serie A, as per WhoScored, despite their poor campaign. Samuel Luckhurst, a journalist for the Manchester Evening News, recently lauded him as a “cracking player” who was “having a good season in a bad Juve team.”
Therefore, it seems rather plausible that Paratici could well find Spurs’ next midfield monster by launching a move for Rabiot this January. He ought to prioritise the Frenchman over his teammate, Weston McKennie, who has also been mooted with a switch to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2023.
