Why Spurs are racing to land £15m Euro 2024 star as first summer transfer

Now that his stint at Euro 2024 is finished, Poland international Sebastian Szymański can focus on what comes next in his career – and after a successful season in Turkey, that could very well be a move to Tottenham Hotspur if a report claiming that he had agreed personal terms on a move to North London proves to be true.

Sport Witness picked up on reports from Turkey which suggest that a deal is moving closer just a year after the player moved to Fenerbahçe, where he shone as a replacement for Arda Güler, scoring 13 goals and providing 19 more across 55 domestic matches. Apparently Spurs’ initial offer of €17.5m (£14.8m) is likely to be rebuffed, but with club and player apparently aligned, it could just be a question of how much wrangling and penny-pinching Daniel Levy wants to do this time.

Assuming this one does get over the line and the 25-year-old makes the move to England, what would Spurs be getting? And is he the kind of player who will make the difference in a bid for a top four place?

Szymański is a versatile, left-footed attacking midfielder who typically plays as a number ten but is also happy enough on the right wing, cutting inside a drifting crosses over to the back stick – and over the past few seasons he’s also learned how to be a consistent threat in front of goal. Or, in his case, quite often nowhere near the goal.

Blessed with enormous shooting power and the confidence to score from distance, Szymański has a long list of screamers to his name ranging from deft curling strikes to good old-fashioned piledrivers – and he’s kept it up despite being shuffled between three clubs over the course of the last three seasons.

A product of Legia Warsaw’s academy, he moved to Dynamo Moscow and scored racked up 14 goal contributions in the 2021/22 season before he left after the invasion of Ukraine and took a loan move to Feyenoord, where he score 10 goals and won the Eredivise. A permanent move to Istanbul followed – and now he could be packing his bags all over again. At least he must be used to the hotel lifestyle.

He isn’t just about the goals, either, although his habit of scoring special strikes does make him the ideal candidate for cult hero status. He’s also fast and a brilliant off-ball runner, getting into dangerous positions consistently and breaking between defenders at speed. He’s tricky to mark and uses his pace off the ball, too, pressing all over the pitch and generating a very healthy number of turnovers – which has no doubt helped to endear him to Ange Postecoglou.

Given that his preferred position currently belongs to James Maddison at Tottenham, it’s easier to imagine him playing the bulk of his minutes on the wing, stretching the field and cutting inside, but it may be a good idea not to let him drift too far from the box – he isn’t a great creator or passer and is at his most dangerous in positions where his ability to get at defenders gives him chances to get right into the box rather than down to the byline. It’s fairly easy to imagine that he’d make a good striker, too, although he hasn’t played there in recent years.

For a fee not likely to be all that much higher than £15m, Spurs would be getting a fine squad player who could provide competition at multiple positions and may very well provide plenty of goals as well. His career trajectory has been on a consistent upward curve for the past few years, and it will be interesting to see how he gets on at the very top level. And for Spurs fans, it’s a promising move which is likely to end up with at least or two brilliant goals scored in front of them.