Sheffield United want Ashley Phillips for £6m
This might happen? But if it does, not for a while.
Do you know how quiet it is out there on the transfer front? There’s been, like, almost zero news and most of the rumors are dumb. Makes it difficult to write about stuff, even more so because I’m set for a little time off from the blog here in the next week for another cancer-related medical procedure. But let’s talk about one iffy rumor anyway.
Alan Nixon, a sportswriter and journalist and ersthile of a periodical that we will not name because it sucks, is nonetheless at times strangely reliable with the transfer rumors. Most of his good stuff he posts on his Patreon now, which I will not subscribe to. Nevertheless, there’s a new rumor out (via Football League World) that says Sheffield United are interested in making a permanent move for Tottenham Hotspur’s 20-year old central defender Ashley Phillips.
Ash hasn’t cracked the first team at Spurs yet but has had a couple of successful loans in the Championship. He’s coming off of a good loan last season with Stoke, and Sheffield United — who recently dumped Chris Wilder for Ruben Selles — would like to make him one of their key offseason additions.
Now does that mean that Phillips is in Frank’s first team plans. Absolutely not (although… maybe?). I can certainly see a situation where he’d be loaned back out to the Championship again if it doesn’t seem he’s quite ready yet. He’s only 20, and you don’t see may 20-year old top level central defenders (the exception being Dean Huijsen, now at Real Madrid).
So stick a pin in this rumor for now. Tottenham clearly have no interest in selling him at the moment, even with a buy-back clause (something I think Spurs should do more of), but that doesn’t mean Ash Phillips won’t move somewhere else this summer. Let’s wait and s
