A bit of a bombshell dropped overnight, with the shocking news that Manchester City are in negotiations to sell Savinho to Tottenham Hotspur. This might sound like rumour rag stuff if you haven’t already seen it, but The Ornacle is reporting that the deal is being actively discussed.
With competition for Brazil places tight ahead of the 2026 World Cup, Savinho would apparently like a move to a team where he’s guaranteed to be first choice. The beneficiaries of this are apparently Tottenham, who I imagine jumped at the chance to make a move.
Savinho has been a dribbling and assisting machine over the last two seasons. His shooting was not good last year, but his xG per shot and shot OBV from the previous year with Girona were good enough that I don’t think anyone should be worried about him being a genuinely wasteful shooter.
Quite a bit about his output changed as he moved between two very different sides in Girona and Man City, but there was one constant: Dribbly boy dribble good.
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The Transfer Flow
Savinho both took quite a few poor shots and badly underperformed his xG last season, which I’d actually consider to be a blessing in disguise for Tottenham.
If he’d scored 5 or 6 goals, he probably wouldn’t be available for something in the £50m price range, and would probably have clubs bigger than Spurs making bids.
Instead, a star winger is falling into their laps because of a little variance.
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The Transfer Flow
Savinho got a bit lucky to put up 8 assists from 5.83 xG assisted, but that’s still a lovely xGA number for a guy with around 2000 minutes played.
He got the ball to Erling Haaland within 12 yards of the goal a lot.
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The Transfer Flow
There’s only one real negative in this move for Spurs: They already paid £50m for a guy who plays the same position. Having signed Mohamed Kudus earlier in the window shouldn’t stop Spurs from signing a much better player in Savinho, but the opportunity cost of the Kudus deal is now going to loom large. That’s a £50m midfielder they could have signed, but now won’t be able to.
Either Kudus or Savinho will have to log a lot of minutes at 10 or left winger, despite it not being their best role.
City, meanwhile, are also set to ship out Jack Grealish and James McAtee. With something like £80m in fees collected and £10m+ in wages cleared off the books with these three moves, City are obviously looking to sign a new star wide player.
Rodrygo and Xavi Simons rumours are already popping up, but it remains to be seen who City’s top target is going to be.