Tottenham Hotspur‘s hopes of bolstering their injury-depleted squad were dented on Friday after Bayern Munich forward Mathys Tel rejected the opportunity to join Ange Postecoglou’s side, sources have told ESPN.
Tel has informed Bayern of his intention to explore new opportunities in the January transfer window and sources told ESPN that Spurs had a €60 million ($62.5m) offer for the player accepted by the Bundesliga giants on Thursday.
The 19-year-old has attracted interest from Premier League clubs keen to add the highly-rated France under-21 international to their squad.
Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal all retain an interest in the player, while Aston Villa see him as a possible replacement for Jhon Durán after the Colombia international left them for Saudi Pro League side Al Nassr.
Sources have told ESPN that Tottenham were hopeful that their offer of a clearer path to the first team would convince Tel to join them after he has been restricted to just 458 minutes in 14 games across all competitions for Bayern this season. However, the plethora of opportunities available to Tel prompted him to turn down a move to Spurs.
The north London club are keen to strengthen their squad for under-fire head coach Postecoglou and have refocused their search to other targets.
Sources have told ESPN that Spurs are exploring a deal to sign AC Milan and England defender Fikayo Tomori but negotations are not advanced.
While the club had been scouring the market for additions in defence, a worrying-looking knee injury suffered by centre-back Radu Dragusin in their Europa League victory over Elfsborg on Thursday has brought forward their search for a new centre-back.
Spurs’ ongoing injury crisis has left Postecoglou in despair with several key players still sidelined for another week or two.
Guglielmo Vicario, Cristian Romero, Destiny Udogie, James Maddison, Wilson Odobert, Brennan Johnson, Timo Werner and Dominic Solanke are all absent with injuries.
“They are all kind of [going to return] around the same time, around 10 days. We are talking about Vicario, Johnson, Destiny, Wilson, Timo,” Postecoglou told a news conference on Friday.
“Romero is a bit of a tricky one. We are not really sure yet. There is still some work he needs to do.
“Certainly all those guys, I think of the long-term ones apart from Dom [Solanke] who is probably a week behind them, the rest of them are slated to be back in the next week to 10 days to be available.”
Spurs have won one of their last 11 Premier League matches and are languishing in 15th place in the table.
Amidst a form crisis and mounting injuries, Postecoglou highlighted the need to strengthen the squad in the January transfer window, particularly given Dragusin’s injury.
“I think depending on the extent of Radu’s [injury], it might be an area we need to look at and certainly this weekend [we are] exploring some options,” he added.
Postecoglou’s side travel to face Brentford in the Premier League in their next fixture on Sunday.
Information from Reuters contributed to this report
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