The press have been rehashing old stories for the past few weeks in a bid to up the interest, but the reality is that a decision should be reached in the next week.

Athletico Madrid return for pre season on Wednesday and that is expected to be the day the issue really gets dealt with, so far the Spanish club have been content to sit back and stir things up in the media in order to up the price, that is of course after they were trying to us the player as bait to persuade Chelsea to part with Luis.

But it is now starting to come to the end and it looks like a straight fight between Saints and Spurs, both have the spending power although Spurs might not have as much as they would have you believe and would be blowing a lot of their budget if the price goes up too high, with a new stadium to build and income severely reduced whilst they reside at Milton Keynes, they are not going to be too flash with the cash.

Their trump, or so they hope is that they have Jan Vertonghen, Alderweireld's international tea mate and certainly they have not been shy to use him to tempt Toby.

They also have Paul Mitchell ex head of recruitment at St Mary's who would know Alderweireld well.

Saints will hope that the fact that Toby himself enjoyed his time at Saints will count for something, certainly at the end of the season he was saying the right things about wanting to come back.

Ultimately though it will come down to money, which club comes up with the highest bid and which one can tempt the player with the highest wages.

Perhaps that will be Saints, however if they lose out they cn perhaps have the satisfaction of knowing that Spurs may have overstretched themselves and that could impact on their season.

Photo: Action Images

PatfromPoole added 09:13 - Jul 4 If, as you say, it comes down to money, then we may as well look at other players. I think we have about a 10% chance of signing him.
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montecristo added 10:28 - Jul 4 on a different note but same subject the Observer are running a story that Schneiderlin could "take direct action" if Saints do not accept Man Utd s next offer believed to be around 25m when Saints are looking for 30m.. So the fact the player has a contract means nothing at all eh?? Im sick of so called player power. Tell utd to get stuffed Saints.
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DPeps added 10:46 - Jul 4 yeah, The Mirror is running the story that AM has bought out the agreement with had with AM to buy Toby for £6.8million The story claims that this gives the edge to Spurs. (A) that's not a new story, and (B) if anything, it gives us an edge because AM have given us money to buy out the agreement, so in practice we don't have to match Spurs bid
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IWOZTHERE added 10:52 - Jul 4 Even I'm more optimistic than 10%. Would help our chances if the Schneiderlin situation was resolved by then, so he knows who would be alongside him here.
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mesquita added 15:55 - Jul 4 I have said from the start that the retention of Toby was the most important part of this summer's transfer trading. We must do everything we can to retain his services. For him to go to Spurs would be a double blow.
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SanMarco added 21:33 - Jul 4 I agree mesquita. montecristo: I think that piece is just extrapolating from MS's behaviour last year - he hasn't, as far as I am aware, threatened this publically.
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