Tottenham Hotspur has agreed a deal to sign midfielder Joao Palhinha on loan from Bayern Munich for the season.
Palhinha's first performance for Spurs could even come across his parent club, planned with the London Club to play Bayern in a pre-season friendly in Munich next Thursday.
The signing of Palhinha cannot cause the excitement that the news of Spurs' ultimately failed bid for Morgan Gibbs-White, but it is potentially more important.
This is why Palhinha, at least in the short term, will solve more problems for his new club than Gibbs-White would have done.
Problem position filled
Although Gibbs-White would undoubtedly have been an excellent signing for the Tottenham team and Thomas Frank would clearly benefit from the addition of another attacking midfielder, it is a natural defensive midfielder who really lacked the team. James Maddison is a more than capable option in the No. 10 position, while Lucas Bergvall can play there. Frank will also have Dejan Kulusevski to choose from as soon as the Swede returns to fitness.
Tottenham is open to the sale of Yves Bissouma, who often had to play as the most defensive of Tottenham midfielders. This is not the natural role of Bissouma and he lacks the consistency to leave the entire season. In Palhinha, Spurs now have a natural no. 6 that can give Rodrigo Bentancur more time on the ball and more offensive talents such as Maddison, Bergvall and Kulusevski can free up to continue. In a team full of players who thrive with the ball, a lot of Palhinha's best work comes off.
Experience
Frank's predecessor, Ange Postecoglou, made it clear last season that the Tottenham team had no experience. Signing a 30-year-old represents a slight change of approach to a club that has mainly focused on young people in recent years, and it should help the rest of the team. Gibbs-White certainly has experience that the Tottenham team would have benefited, but Palhinha is five years older, has a great cluber experience from his enchantment at Bayern and enjoyed two successful seasons in the Premier League with Fulham. An older head in the middle of the park is exactly what Spurs needs and the Portugal International will be just as useful outside the field as it should be.
Set piece help
Tottenham is in no way a small team, but they occasionally had trouble defending set pieces. Palhinha should be able to help with that. Standing on just over 6ft 2, he will not only help to stop balls over the top, but also have to offer help to Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero in defending corners and free kicks. Gibbs-White is said to have given Tottenham another option when taking set pieces, but Pedro Porro can already offer excellent deliveries, while Maddison is also a corner and free kick specialist.
Support for Frank
Signing a 30-year-old, even on loan, is not a decision that chairman Daniel Levy would have taken light. It goes against its recent policy to go for young people and the club offers little in terms of long -term security. But crucial is that the support and support for the new head coach represents. Frank clearly wanted a player of Palhinha's profile, after he had made midfielder Christian Norgaard an integral part of his Brentford team. Norgaard moved to Arsenal this summer and it is said that the side of Mikel Arteta himself looked at Palhinha before he completed that deal. Frank will need as much support and support as possible if he has to make a success of his first season that is in charge of Spurs and it is encouraging that Levy is willing to deviate from the norm to do this.
And one more thing …
Tottenham and Bayern have become commercial buddies in recent years with Harry Kane and Eric Dier who move to Germany and Mathys Tel and are now coming in the opposite direction. Spurs has a clause in the first place to sign Kane again at some point that Bayern decides to sell him and whether the player desire to leave. Sources are already discussing the possibility that Kane will return to England next summer and the Premier League, after the World Cup, so open the door to a comeback of an emotional spurs in 12 months? Time will learn, but it is clear that Tottenham and Bayern enjoy mutual affordable things.