Ange Postecoglou bagged plenty of bargains in his time at Celtic – and is already starting to make Tottenham transfer savings.
The Australian is set to be backed big in the market by the Premier League club's power broker Daniel Levy, following his switch from the Premiership champions to North London. But Postecoglou appears keen to make every penny count, as his two early deals appear to prove.
Having chased down Brentford's Spanish goalkeeper David Raya at a price of £40million, the Aussie has instead turned his attentions to Empoli shotstopper Guglielmo Vicario. That deal, however, will cost £16.3m, a fraction of the big bucks their city foes want for Raya. Dejan Kulusevski's loan from Juventus has also been made permanent and savings of £4.3m have been saved in that deal. Football London claim 'paying £25.6m, which is to be paid in six financial years, for the 23-year-old, the initial agreement with Juventus as part of the loan deal was Tottenham had the option to purchase Kulusevski for £29.9m and it was payable within five years had his transfer not become automatic anyway due to their obligation to buy him had they qualified for the Champions League’.
That means Postecoglou has already saved £28m after renegotiations for the Swedish attacker and by opting for Vicario over Raya. That could allow him to make other targets a priority. James Maddison is one that is likely to cost big bucks from Leicester City. Edmund Tapsoba could come from Bayer Leverkusen to strengthen them defensively but he won't arrive cheap either.
While at Celtic, Postecoglou made a habit of bargain buys. Josip Juranovic was signed for £2.5m, Kyogo at under £5m and Reo Hatate's arrival for a mere £1.4m were just some examples of how effectively he used the market.
