The Daily Echo is reporting that they are led to believe that Saints have accepted a bid from Everton and that Pierre Emile Hojbjerg has visited the Everton training base and agreed terms, ironically just as I suggested earlier in the summer that his agent was using tales of Spurs interest as bait.

A few months ago I said that I suspected that the Pierre Emile Hojbjerg situation this summer was very similar to that of Jose Fonte in 2016, the players agent a friend of Jose Mourinho, used that friendship to suggest that both players are on the radar of Mourinho, Man Utd for Fonte and Spurs for Hojbjerg.

But I couldn't believe that Spurs actually considered that Hojbjerg was their number one target and that suggested to me that the players agent was using them as bait to lure another fish, a club that in it's quest to be seen as a big club was willing to pay over the odds .
This now seems to be the case with Everton suddenly coming to the fore in the deal and are now said to have agreed a £25 million fee with Saints for the midfielder.

Most Saints fans would see that as good business, opinion on the Dane is divided, most are in the middle ground and see him as a competent Premier League player but nothing more, a sizeable minority feel he is not even that.

The strange thing is that the player himself has talked big about wanting to play for a big club in the Champions League and competing for honours and there is a big chance that Everton could actually finish below Saints in this season table.

Four years ago the Toffee's arguably started a downturn in Saints fortunes by luring Ronald Koeman away from St Mary's by making him one of the highest paid football managers in the World and talked about overtaking Liverpool as the top club on Merseyside, truth is that the period since then has seen that divide widen and indeed Everton have fared little better than Saints since, if fact some would say worse given our appearance in a major cup final.

So if Hojbjerg is leaving for Everton then his ambitions are little to do with wanting to play in the Champions League and more about financial matters.

£25 million would be seen as a good fee for Saints and many would say that in Oriel Romeu we have a player who is as good as Hojbjerg, the departure of the Dane could persuade Romeu to sign a new deal.

The good news is that if this news is correct we have done the deal early, we have him off the books and we have money to spend in the transfer window, this could well trigger a few incoming transfers including Mohammed Salisu from Real Vallodollid.

I wish Pierre Emile Hojnjerg well, no one can doubt his commitment over the past four years, he has proved a decent signing if not an inspired one, but truth is he has not become the player we all hoped he would be.

We now need to take the money and move on, spent well £25 million could well turn us into a top 10 side next season.

Photo: Action Images

AmericanSaint added 20:57 - Jul 21 Nick - all good and fair points you have made. PEH is like a lot of our players who seem to have hot and cold days, but you could never question his passion and honesty about playing the game. Like you, I wish him well, but I think he will find that the grass is not green on the other side of the fence (just like Ricky, Lalana, Shcniederlin, etc). Yes they all made more money, but ultimately, they never really became big stars on a bigger stage. Like, you said, now we have to spend this money wisely.......

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IanRC added 21:22 - Jul 21 Liverpool Echo say Everton have not made any such offer, the plot thickens .....
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codge added 22:25 - Jul 21 If true personaly l think Spurs have dogged a bullet as l could never see him fitting in there and wouldn’t of been a upgrade for them.Great business for us though and really believe we’re be better of without him.
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dirk_doone added 23:00 - Jul 21 Sorry, Nick, but you've got that wrong. Spurs have bid for Højbjerg and they are going to bid again but the problem appears to be that they want to part exchange Walker-Peters whereas Saints want cash. Personally, I would favour Spurs' bid because Walker-Peters has been good for us. All of the Spurs' websites acknowledge their bid for Højbjerg: https://theboyhotspur.com/tottenham-transfer-news-hojbjerg/

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dirk_doone added 23:23 - Jul 21 Højbjerg is an average Premier League player and players of that calibre are hard to get for less than £25 million. When you start talking about clearly above average Premier League class players, you are moving into stratospheric £50 million + fees. Let's be honest, we bought a number of overpriced, below average Premier League players, like Hoedt, Carrillo, Elyoonoussi, Vestergaard and Boufal, when Les Reed no longer had Paul Mitchell as his Head of Recruitment, finding the players he could claim the credit for. Anyway, the important thing is, we have got rid of Les Reed. We can forget about the hundred million pounds he wasted on garbage that we struggled to even loan out, because we've got rid of him and the club is making very astute decisions in the transfer market again. So, onwards and upwards. We have a club we can trust to make the right decisions. We have both Harrison Reed and Romeu to replace Højbjerg. But, let's not knock a player our owners want to sell. He has served us well.

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davidargyll added 07:29 - Jul 22 PEH as you say is competent but no more IMHO. But I love all these comments about us wasting money in the past How many can honestly say that the choices of purchases over the last five years were rubbish at the time? With hindsight yes of course, but at the time? Spending money on transfers requires a huge amount of luck: Les Reed et al had some for a while, then didn’t. The mistake was not making enough loan deals to see if players fitted in before signing them permanently; But hopefully under the new regime we aren’t going to make that error again. If KWP is a sign of luck turning our way in the transfer market, that’s great

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davidargyll added 07:31 - Jul 22 PEH as you say is competent but no more IMHO. But I love all these comments about us wasting money in the past How many can honestly say that the choices of purchases over the last five years were rubbish at the time? With hindsight yes of course, but at the time? Spending money on transfers requires a huge amount of luck: Les Reed et al had some for a while, then didn’t. The mistake was not making enough loan deals to see if players fitted in before signing them permanently; But hopefully under the new regime we aren’t going to make that error again. If KWP is a sign of luck turning our way in the transfer market, that’s great

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SaintNick added 08:17 - Jul 22 Dirk I haven't got it wrong, I was commenting on a Daily Echo report, you are using Tottenham fan sites as your source, with all due respect they are not exactly being briefed directly by Spurs. The Echo is much maligned of late and rightly so, but it does have a direct line into the club, as does BBC Radio Solent, if they put a story out there is a good chance that the source is from within the club or they have at least checked with the club before putting it out In this case it is in Saints interest to highlight interest from other clubs to try and start a bidding war and Everton's interest to deny the story so they will not appear desperate and get forced into a bidding war

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SaintNick added 08:20 - Jul 22 PS I would also add that The Boy Hotspur your quoted source, has changed it's tune this morning acknowledging that Everton have jumped ahead in the queue as they are offering more cash on the table whilst Spurs are trying to get pay in a more drawn out manner
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highfield49 added 09:20 - Jul 22 Like others I suspect that we haven't tried too hard to meet the contract demands of PEH because Harry Reed has developed into a much better player whilst on loan at Fulham. I'd be surprised if HR isn't offered a new deal at St Mary's, I believe he has one year left on his current contract, and if rumours suggesting that Burnley want to sign him are true then we know he has options apart from staying at Fulham beyond the end of July. It's not often that we have the opportunity to sell a player and have a replacement already at the club.

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IanRC added 10:30 - Jul 22 £20m + KWP would do but not sure Levy will let that happen, though he is taking plenty of flack.
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SaintPaulVW added 12:03 - Jul 22 Hopefully this can be sorted soon. He wants to go; we seem to have replacements and we can all move/march! on
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sandywelsh added 13:20 - Jul 22 I hope Hojbjerg goes to Spurs in some sort of deal for Kyle Walker-Peters even if its a straight swap.
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halftimeorange added 14:51 - Jul 22 For Hobjberg read either Schneiderlin or Wanyama. Within a season he'll be forgotten at St Marys. Also, I agree about Harry Reed. He's worth another punt down here but, I've always thought that.
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SanMarco added 00:34 - Jul 23 Not sure he is as good as either of those two halftimeorange. I think Nick's article is spot-on in the assessment of Hojberg as a player. Not a disaster, tried hard but he is over-optimistic if he thinks he is going to make it at one of the very big boys. Everton are no better than us and if they 'spend big' on players the quality of Hojberg then they won't be next year either.

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