Tottenhams Jack Grealish swap deal offer three years before £100m Man City bid
Transfer update: Grealish news plus latest on Dumfries
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Tottenham may just be wondering why they didn’t up their offer for Jack Grealish back in 2018. He’s a player the club have admired for the past few years but in the past 12 months, there has been an acceptance that the attacker is now well out of Spurs’ reach.
Grealish was only ever going to leave his boyhood club if they received an offer that blew them out of the water.
Manchester City have threatened to do exactly that by tabling a staggering £100million, a figure that could become the new Premier League transfer record.
But rewind the clock back to 2018 and things were nearly so very different…
Tottenham were hot in pursuit of Grealish, who wanted to leave the club to return to the Premier League.
EXCLUSIVE: Aston Villa to bid for Todd Cantwell if Jack Grealish green-lights £100m Man City transfer
Aston Villa had failed to seal their return back to the top-flight and Grealish wasn’t keen on playing Championship football again.
He did eventually stay of course, driving his side to promotion in their play-off final win over Derby.
But as reported by The Mirror in August 2018, Spurs made a move for Grealish.
They are said to have submitted a bid of just £3million plus Josh Onomah for the attacker but it was rebuffed by Villa.
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Onomah is now playing his football with Fulham and injuries have held him back in the past few years.
Daniel Levy thought he was taking a bit of a gamble by offering Villa Onomah.
He clearly had a bright future but looked unlikely to break into the Spurs first-team at the time.
The midfielder had produced the best football of his career while on loan at Villa but upon reflection, the club will be thankful they didn’t cave in and accept.
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Spurs eventually upped their offer to £25m but once again, Villa held firm.
The club were simply not interested in selling their academy graduate and the decision has now paid off.
Even though Villa are reluctant to say goodbye to their boy wonder, they will receive £100m for his services.
That is enough to make several worthwhile investments and upgrades to their squad.
Replacing Grealish is an impossible task though of course.
Dean Smith won’t even attempt to try and bring in a player who can do what Grealish does for Villa because he knows it’s impossible.
Express Sport understands Villa are expected to bid for Norwich’s Todd Cantwell though.
A deal for Leon Bailey has also been agreed and it’s now hard to argue against Villa’s ambition in the transfer market…
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