Tottenham have reportedly held extensive negotiations with Norwich over a summer deal for Max Aarons.
According to Football Insider, Tottenham have laid the groundwork to sign Aarons at the end of the season as they look to strengthen their defence.
The report also claims that they are eyeing West Brom’s Nathan Ferguson as a potential alternative.
READ NORWICH VERDICT
Aarons has started 23 of Norwich’s 25 Premier League games this season and was key in the club’s promotion from the Championship last term. Despite his importance, could Norwich afford to lose him?
Sam Byram has been in excellent form this season and taken Jamal Lewis’ place at left-back, but he is a right-back by trade. This means that if Aarons were to join Spurs, Byram could simply move across to right-back and Lewis could regain his spot on the left.
Byram has averaged a WhoScored rating of 6.79 in the Premier League this season for Norwich, a score only Emi Buendia and Ondrej Duda can better. This shows that he is more than capable of replacing Aarons at right-back, perhaps even being an upgrade on him. Aarons’ WhoScored rating this season is 6.53, showing that he is underperforming in comparison to Byram.
However, Aarons is still only 20, whilst Byram is far more experienced at 26-years-old, so he has plenty of room to develop as he gets more Premier League minutes under his belt. In the short-term, though, selling Aarons and keeping Byram and Lewis at fullback could be a shrewd bit of business from the Canaries in the summer.
