Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy has done superb transfer business once again.
According to BBC Sport, Spurs have got Swansea City to pay around £4.5m for midfielder Tom Carroll, who signed a three-and-a-half-year deal at the Liberty Stadium today.
Carroll was deadwood at White Hart Lane. He was a neat and tidy player whose best attribute was undoubtably his passing, but his lack of any other skills made him unsuitable for a team with title ambitions.
Spurs have not robbed Swansea by any means. £4.5m is probably the going rate for 24-year Englishman with Carroll’s CV and footballing education – 17 caps at U21 level, 126 club appearances (including loan spells) and a schooling from one of the finest academies in world football.
But Carroll had no future at Spurs. That much seemed certain in September when he, somewhat strangely, extended his contract with the London club until 2019.
Despite the obligatory photoshoot with manager Mauricio Pochettino doing his best impression of a proud father, many among the Spurs community strongly suspected that Carroll’s days were still numbered.
NEW CONTRACT: We are delighted to announce that @tom_carroll92 has signed a new contract with the Club until 2019. pic.twitter.com/NKF5AsC0Wa
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) September 16, 2016
And indeed they were. In hindsight, that Carroll contract now makes perfect sense. Everybody was a winner.
Spurs got to increase the value of their asset, which allowed them to command a better transfer fee. Meanwhile, the player himself probably got a modest bump up in wages for the final few months of his Tottenham stay.
And, although Swansea may feel like they could have got a better deal had they moved for Carroll in the summer, they now have a player who will hopefully help them make better use of possession.
Swansea’s average possession share this season has been 47.8%, which is better than 10 Premier League teams, including West Bromwich Albion and Stoke City.
Tottenham are fourth in the table based on possession with 58%, behind Arsenal (58.3%), Liverpool (59.9%) and Manchester City (62.4%).