Destiny Udogie’s agent, Stefano Antonelli, has said that it is a shame that the biggest clubs in Italy did not feel that his client was worth investing in while Tottenham were prepared to take a punt on him.
There was a lot of excitement about Udogie’s arrival at Tottenham, with the youngster continuing to impress on loan at Udinese last season.
However, there were perhaps a few doubts as to whether the 20-year-old would be able to adapt to the demands of the inverted full-back role, having played exclusively as a wing-back in Serie A.
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Udogie has well and truly answered that question with the start he has made to his career at the North London club, having already established himself as a mainstay of the Spurs backline.
When asked about his client’s decision to move to Tottenham, Antonelli said (via Gianluca Di Marzio): “It is certainly a shame that the big Italian teams did not make the investment that Tottenham made early and that young people of this level have to find space and glory outside Italy.
“We are happy with everything that is happening and Destiny is very happy to be at Tottenham.”
Fabio Paratici unearthed a gem in Destiny Udogie
Antonelli reserved special praise for Tottenham’s former managing director of football, Fabio Paratici, for driving the Premier League side’s pursuit of the left-back.
He continued: “Surely the one who had the intuition, and demonstrated once again that he is a winner, is Fabio Paratici who, even in a moment in which there were Sessegnon, Reguilon and Perisic, he thought it appropriate to make an investment in Tottenham, which is one of the top 5 or 6 teams in the Premier League.”
Udogie is not the only Italian in Tottenham’s starting eleven, with Guglielmo Vicario also making a solid start to his career at the club since his switch from Empoli in the summer.
Antonelli pointed out how rare it is for a top Premier League side like Spurs to make two successful acquisitions from the Serie A for relatively low fees.
He added about the pair’s arrival at Tottenham: “The Premier League, as we know, is an economically extreme world and taking two players starters for so little is almost a unique case and is a symptom of great managerial depth. Everything that happens in the Premier League is above 25-30 million euros: Chelsea took Cucurella, for example, for 80 million.”
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Tottenham’s acquisitions of the likes of Van de Ven, Vicario and Udogie have shown that some great transfer deals are still very much possible even in this inflated market as long as one’s scouting and recruitment is top notch. Brighton have proven the same thing over the last several years.
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