Tottenham on defender hunt but Jose Mourinho will bide his time with transfer budget

Jose Mourinho

The Portuguese took over at the north London club in November after the sacking of Mauricio Pochettino and will have his first opportunity to make signings in the new year.

According to the Mail Online, the Spurs hierarchy are willing to hand their manager a transfer kitty to bring in fresh faces, but he is not planning on making major changes.

Mourinho doesn’t want to splash the cash in January, but instead make some low-key signings to improve his squad.

Top of his wish-list is a new right-back, and Norwich’s Max Aarons and West Brom’s Nathan Ferguson have been the subjects of scouting missions.

However, Mourinho is thought to be waiting until the summer to make major changes and perform an overhaul of his playing squad.

It is likely to be a summer of big change for Spurs, with Christian Eriksen, Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen all set to depart at the end of their contracts as things stand.

Spurs chairman Daniel Levy has suggested that he could look to sell Eriksen in January, to add some cash to the transfer budget and avoid losing the Dane for free at the end of the season.

The playmaker has been linked with the likes of PSG and Real Madrid, but Levy left the door open for a sale to another Premier League side.

"We are honestly not scared to trade with our rivals," he told the Evening Standard.

"My view is really simple," he added. "For a player to sign a new contract, not only have the conditions got to be right but the player has got to want to do it. It is up to those players whether they want to stay at Tottenham and we’ll see.

“I don’t want to comment on ­individual players too much. I actually think it is unfair. Every circumstance is different. There may be a player who wants to stay, there may be a player we don’t want to stay.”

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Alasdair Mackenzie is a freelance journalist based in Rome, and a FourFourTwo contributor since 2015. When not pulling on the FFT shirt, he can be found at Reuters, The Times and the i. An Italophile since growing up on a diet of Football Italia on Channel 4, he now counts himself among thousands of fans sharing a passion for Ross County and Lazio.