So there sure is a lot of smoke surrounding yesterday’s big bombshell report from David Ornstein. If you missed it, Spurs are reportedly in active negotiations with Manchester City for a double-swoop for Savinho AND Omar Marmoush, which combined could cost in the realm of £140m-150m. That’s a LOT of money, but since money isn’t real and Spurs are desperately trying to refresh their squad this summer (and because the initial report came from Ornstein) I’m inclined to think it’s a real thing.
Now more details are coming out, and this is the one I find the most interesting from City account City_Xtra:
#ManCity and Tottenham have agreed a deal for Savinho worth €93.3M up-front plus €5.7M in bonuses. The expectation is the player will soon be cleared for a medical, according to @cahemota. Adding a deal for Omar Marmoush, the total is expected to be around €151M. 🇧🇷🇪🇬
— City Xtra (@City_Xtra) August 20, 2026City Xtra, like us, are an aggregator account, but they’re very clued in to goings-on at City and are pretty reliable as sources. What’s interesting about this is that this makes it sound like the Savinho and Marmoush deals are concurrent, but separate. If you blinked at the €93.5m bid plus bonuses for Savinho, I don’t blame you but there appears to be a good (if somewhat petty) reason for it — if we take the €99m bid for Savinho and subtract that from the €151m total bid that leaves a bid of €52m for Marmoush.
That seems a little low, right? Well, apparently Eintracht Frankfurt, who City bought Marmoush from a few years ago, has an undisclosed sell-on clause in his contract. So overbidding for Savinho and underbidding for Marmoush in concurrent deals essentially screws Frankfurt out of what would be a more substantial payout for Marmoush’s sell-on clause, while the amount Spurs pay to City for both players remains the same.
Spurs have done this kind of thing before for other players, though my brain is not remembering the details… I want to say Giovani Lo Celso, but it might have been someone else and I’m sure someone will correct me in the comments. In this case screwing Frankfurt benefits City, and doesn’t hurt Spurs at all. It’s a clever way to get around those clauses, though it does feel a bit petty for two of the richest clubs in world football to do it. But whatever.
This deal certainly does appear to have some serious movement behind it, and at this point I’m just assuming it’s happening and it’ll be done soon. Probably not in time for Spurs to register either player for Saturday’s match at Brentford, but certainly before the deadline.
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