DANIEL LEVY will demand a cash-only deal for star striker Harry Kane.
The Tottenham chairman wants at least £150million for his England captain — if he is prepared to let him leave at all, that is.
But he is definitely not interested in ‘cast-offs’ as part of a player-exchange deal for the 27-year-old.
Levy has a reputation for playing hardball in the transfer market.
And having already been left deeply upset by Kane’s bid to get away, Levy will dig his heels in to get what he wants.
SunSport revealed Manchester City are prepared to offer Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus plus £60m to get a deal over the line.
Levy knows his squad needs major reconstruction after last season’s slump left them stranded in the Europa Conference League.
Cash would be king, especially with clubs hit hard by financial losses due to coronavirus.
While Sterling and Jesus may be title winners, accepting City’s deal would give Spurs less cash to bring in their own choice of players.
Levy knows Sterling is on £300,000-a-week at the Etihad — too much for Tottenham.
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He also feels neither player would fancy dropping out of the Champions League and into the third tier of European competition.
Both Manchester clubs and Chelsea have spoken to Kane’s representatives to stake their claim for a man who has scored 221 Spurs goals, along with 34 for England.
Negotiations have not yet begun with Levy, whose stance is still that he wants Kane to see out the last three years of his deal.
But if he is prepared to let Kane go, only money will talk.
He will remember how it all went wrong when he got £86m for Gareth Bale from Real Madrid seven years ago.
It was then a world record fee — and certain of the deal going through before Bale actually left, Spurs went out and bought seven players.
Erik Lamela at £30m, Roberto Soldado for £26m and Christian Eriksen at £11.5m were three of the players who totalled £108m as Levy tried to build a new team.
The plan backfired spectacularly though.
Boss Andre Villas-Boas was sacked before Christmas and Spurs ultimately finished the season in sixth.
The club debt was again highlighted yesterday by lifelong fan Lord Triesman.
He said: “Spurs have a gross debt last reported in February of £1.177bn, the biggest in Europe, a glorious new stadium and an utterly inconsistent team to play in it.
“The business is essentially now a real-estate developer.”
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Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
