North London club eye summer move for Portugal full back.
SOURCE: The Sunday Mirror
Tottenham Hotspur will attempt to sign Real Madrid defender Fabio Coentrao at the end of the season as a replacement for Benoit Assou-Ekotto, who looks like leaving White Hart Lane for big-spending Ligue 2 outfit AS Monaco this summer.
The North London club’s head coach Andre Villas-Boas is known to be a long-term admirer of Madrid’s highly-skilled full back, having monitored the player’s progress at Benfica while he was also coaching at FC Porto.
The 25-year-old only moved to the Santiago Bernabeu from Lisbon in the summer of 2011 for 30 million euros – a huge transfer fee for a defender – but Coentrao has endured a tricky start to life in the Spanish capital in the intervening two years as he fights with Brazil international Marcelo for a regular starting berth at left back under head coach Jose Mourinho.
And compatriot Villas-Boas is understood to be hoping to take advantage of the uncertainty surrounding the Portugal international’s future at Los Blancos by submitting a bid of £16m for the player, who is contracted to Madrid until 2017.
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