Savinho Skips City Training as Tottenham Push £70m Move

Savinho was missing from Manchester City’s open training session on Thursday. On the surface, the club put it down to illness. Behind the scenes, the picture looks far more pointed.

Tottenham Hotspur have chased the Brazil international for over a year. They failed to get him through the door last summer. This time, they are refusing to back off.

Roberto De Zerbi has signed off the move. The new Spurs head coach wants at least two attackers in before the 1 September deadline, and Savinho sits right at the top of that list. Club target and manager’s pick. That usually ends one way.

Transfer specialist Fabrizio Romano reported on Thursday afternoon that Savinho has again told City he wants to leave and join Tottenham. The message has been repeated this week: his preference is north London, his preferred stage the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Romano has spoken in recent weeks of a “very good chance” of the winger ending up in a Spurs shirt. The catch is familiar in modern City business: they want a replacement lined up first. It is the same dynamic holding up their interest in another Tottenham target, Cody Gakpo at Liverpool. One door will not open until another is ready to swing.

Even so, momentum is building. A well-placed Tottenham source on X has claimed within the last 24 hours that the Savinho deal is expected to reach a positive conclusion within a week. The fee being discussed is around £70m.

That number stops you in your tracks.

Spurs have already shown they are prepared to go heavy in this window. They blew rivals away to land Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United and Sandro Tonali from Newcastle United, paying a combined £185m. The message to De Zerbi has been clear: you will be backed.

But £70m for Savinho raises eyebrows, even in a market where fees keep inflating.

City paid £30m to sign him from Girona two years ago. Since then, the 22-year-old has made 84 appearances for the eight-time Premier League champions, a respectable tally for a young wide player learning under Pep Guardiola. His output, though, has not exploded. He never fully nailed down a guaranteed starting spot, and new City manager Enzo Maresca appears prepared to let him go.

That tells its own story. Savinho has obvious talent — City do not invest in passengers — yet he still feels like a work in progress rather than a finished article. For Tottenham, that is both the attraction and the risk.

This is a club desperate to climb back up the Premier League after back-to-back 17th-place finishes. They need instant impact but are staking serious money on potential. De Zerbi clearly believes he can unlock more from the Brazilian with regular football and a central role in his attacking structure. A coach’s faith at this level can transform a career.

Right now, though, stripped of optimism and sentiment, £70m looks like a premium. Spurs are paying for upside, for scarcity in the market, and for the chance that Savinho’s ceiling is far higher than what City have seen so far.

If he explodes under De Zerbi, nobody at Tottenham will care about the fee. If he does not, this becomes another expensive question mark on a balance sheet that is suddenly carrying some very big bets.