Tottenham’s move for Blackburn teenager Ashley Phillips will not impact their bid to sign a new senior centre-back this summer.
Spurs are closing in on a £3million deal to buy Phillips but they remain interested in Bayer Leverkusen’s Edmond Tapsoba and Wolfsburg’s Micky van de Ven.
Phillips, 18, is viewed by Spurs as a player for the future and new head coach Ange Postecoglou wants to upgrade his backline for next season.
Spurs showed defensive vulnerabilities in their 3-2 friendly defeat to West Ham in Australia on Tuesday, further highlighting their need to strengthen at the back.
Asked if he wants to sign a centre-back before the new season starts, Postecoglou said: “Yeah, I think that’s definitely our intention, absolutely.
“We’ve been working on it for a while and we’ll definitely try to get it done as quickly as possible.
“I don’t think it’s any secret about some of the areas we needed to strengthen. The goalkeeper was one and central defence is another.”
Spurs have signed three new players this summer, bringing in goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario, midfielder James Maddison and forward Manor Solomon. Dejan Kulusevski has also made his loan move permanent.
A centre-back is the next priority but Spurs also need to offload players.
They have taken a 31-man squad on their pre-season tour of Australia and Asia, having left six players in London, and Postecoglou is aware the squad is too big.
“We’ve got a big squad but my view is I wanted to bring them along and just work with them and get some clarity in my head and give clarity to them,” he said.
“Because I think you’ll find that a lot of them will say: ‘To be honest it’s not for me, the way we’re playing and the way we’re training’, because like I say I do things differently.
“Every day we have together, every game like last night, it gives you clarity about certain things and there’s no doubt that the squad will be whittled down and there will be some more changes between now and probably the end of the transfer window.”
