Which winger should Tottenham sign?

With Son Heung-Min aging and potentially flirting with a move abroad, Tottenham Hotspur have been linked to some prime-age replacements at left wing this summer. Eberechi Eze has been a rumoured Spurs target for a couple windows now, and new reporting from Matt Law came out today linking them to a move for Mohammed Kudus.

These players have similar profiles, though Eze is a better passer and Kudus is a better dribbler. They’re both solid all-rounders on the wing, though I don’t think either is exceptional at anything.

Eze racked up a lot more shot assists than Kudus this year, even if you take out his set pieces. Corners and free kicks amounted for 20 of his key passes and 1.54 of his xA. Taking that away, he’s still beating Kudus in key pass volume, and absolutely rinsing him in xG per shot assisted.

I would not call either of these guys high value shooters, and in fact, they both border on wasteful. Some of that is about the teams they play on — both Crystal Palace and West Ham had long stretches of being extremely poor this season, relying on Eze and Kudus to be one-man attacks with very little support in roughly half their games.

But this is a truly outrageous number of low value and blocked shots, from both players.

With reported prices north of £50m, I’m not really sure why Tottenham would sign either player? There are definitely some positions and rare profiles where you’re willing to overpay for either Premier League experience or direct system fit, but I don’t think that all-rounder right-footed left winger is one of them. There are two dozen Kudus and Eze-like substances in other European leagues for half the price.

But what do you guys think? Vote, and we’ll share the results later in the week:

More transfer rumours

• Chelsea have agreed to fees and are now finalizing the moves of Jamie Gittens and João Pedro for around £55m each. Gittens definitely fills a need… and I’m not sure Pedro does. Here’s some previous stuff from us about what teams see in Pedro and why Gittens makes sense for Chelsea.

• Buried in this Guardian post about the Gittens transfer is the news that Sunderland have agreed to sign midfielder Habib Diarra for a club record £30m from BlueCo subsidiary Strasbourg. He’s a very Jobe Bellingham-like player, active runner who can play in an 8 or 10 role.

• Seeing Arsenal linked with Valencia defender Cristhian Mosquera is a bit surprising to me. They could use a young rotation defender to go with their set of prime age guys, but Mosquera’s low aerial stats are a dreadful fit for Set Piece FC.

• I can’t tell if this Bild report about Arsenal entering the race for Hugo Ekitike is something worth paying attention to, or Ekitike’s agent yapping so other teams get a move on. I do think he’d be a much better signing for the Gunners than Benjamin Šeško or Viktor Gyökeres, though.

• Burnley are expected to sign wide forward Loum Tchaouna from Lazio. He’s more of a shooter than playmaker or dribbler, and his shot value was not good last year. But he’s 21, and at a reported £13m, they are unlikely to lose money on the deal.

• Reporting continues to come out that Liverpool are closing in on Marc Guehi. I remain skeptical that Liverpool would pay top dollar for someone with one year left on their contract, in the same window where they bought a guy for £115m.

• I also don’t think Liverpool will sell Harvey Elliott, but apparently RB Leipzig would like to buy him.

• Tammy Abraham is heading to Besiktas on a four-year deal. I thought his numbers were good enough in limited minutes for Milan that a Premier League team would take a look at him, but they certainly weren’t offering that kind of contract length. Smart by an injury prone guy to lock up the guaranteed money.

• Aston Villa would really like to cash in on Emi Martinez while his value is still high. He’s been a great player for them, but if they can actually get £40m+, selling is a no-brainer.

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