The genius £20m midfielder swoop Tottenham must beat Man Utd and Liverpool to

It is not often that you will read a piece on 3 Added Minutes addressing anything remotely Blackburn Rovers adjacent that is written by yours truly and not my esteemed colleague (and slightly biased Ewood fanatic) Matt Gregory. Then again, I like to think of myself as a fairly kind person, and to that end, if I can grant a small mercy to a friend, then I will always try to do so.

You see, this article is about Adam Wharton - or more specifically, the baying mob of Premier League colossi snapping at his heels in an attempt to sign him. According to a report from 90min, Tottenham Hotspur have emerged as the latest club to express an interest in the midfielder, who is already understood to be garnering attention from the likes of Brighton, Everton, Liverpool, and the two Uniteds, Manchester and Newcastle. It is quite the list of suitors.

Once upon a time, Blackburn might have been able to fend off such an auspicious gang of gentlemanly pickpockets, but those halcyon days have long gone - consigned, like the Blackberry or Keane (the band, not the confrontational Irishman) to the dusty archives of mid-noughties-relevancy-turned-sour. Nowadays, to become aware of apparent transfer interest in an Ewood Park prospect is to be served an accompanying side dish of creeping inevitability.

And certainly, Wharton, perhaps more than most in recent memory, is deserving of such highfalutin courtship. Still only 19, the somersaulting academy product has steadily established himself as one of the most promising young talents in the Football League. Already an England youth international, his current trajectory seems irresistibly destined to carry him towards the top flight, whether that be with his boyhood club or, in greater likelihood, a side intent on snatching him away from Rovers.

His departure, if and when it comes, will represent a sledgehammer blow to the temple of Blackburn's own aspirations. Rarely does brilliance like Wharton's rear its head, and rarer still does it loom so swiftly and undeniably, like a Hotpot Godzilla, from the soot-stained wilds of the East Lancashire Hills. Nestled just in front of a back four, his natural intelligence and sweeping anticipation affords him a measure of poise that is not only scarce outside of the Premier League, but that hugely belies his relative infancy as a professional too.

Visionary, composed, and gifted in possession, his knack for unravelling defences with line-breaking distribution (no Rovers midfielder eclipsed his pass success rate of 83.7% last season, and no teenager in the Championship could match his 6.41 progressive passes per 90 minutes) and his driving presence as a ball-carrier suggest that he has both the raw ability and dizzying potential required to continue his evolution into a complete, thoroughly modern central midfielder. Comfortable with both feet, entirely unflappable, and nauseatingly untouched by the ravages of time, Wharton is a player who could - and maybe even should - clamber his way to the very top.

Or to put it another way, he is a desirable asset who is only going to become more desirable as time goes by. Already valued somewhere in the region of £20 million by Blackburn, there are plenty of reasons to believe that he could be worth considerably more than that in the near future. As such, whoever wins the race for his signature could well be securing themselves not only a prodigious rising star of the English game, but also something of a golden goose, capable of paying back the investment in him several times over and then some.

And if it is Spurs who eventually end up prising him away from Blackburn, then honestly, best of luck to them... despite Matt Gregory's likely protestations.