Spurs miss out on £60m signing ahead of Arsenal clash | OneFootball

Tottenham Hotspur have missed out on Morgan Gibbs-White, with the midfielder extending his Nottingham Forest contract ahead of Thursday’s north London derby friendly match.

Photo via NottinghamForest.co.uk

Just over two weeks ago, it looked as though Tottenham Hotspur were on the verge of announcing the signing of Morgan Gibbs-White from Nottingham Forest.

Multiple reports confirmed that Spurs had triggered the midfielder’s release clause, with a medical booked for July 11th, well in advance of the club’s pre-season trip to Asia.

In all likelihood, Gibbs-White would have been involved in Spurs’ friendly against Arsenal on Thursday if all had gone to plan for them.

Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images

But after those initial reports, everything started to fall apart. Sami Mokbel of the BBC was among those to report that Nottingham Forest believed Spurs had made an illegal approach for the player, and that there had been a breach of confidentiality provisions in his contract.

The suggestion was that Spurs hadn’t approached Forest before opening talks with Gibbs-White, and that they’d somehow learned of his £60m release clause despite the fact it should have been confidential.

The Nottingham club hinted at the possibility of legal action against their Premier League rivals, and they prepared a complaint to the Premier League.

In a remarkable turnaround, David Ornstein then broke the news on Saturday that Forest were in talks with Gibbs-White over a new contract. Within hours, the player’s new deal to 2028 was confirmed by his club.

Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images

Forest describe the new contract as a “record deal”, so they’ve clearly made a significant financial commitment to convince Gibbs-White to stay for one more year.

The relatively short three-year deal will likely still see the player departing at some point soon, but evidently not this summer, and perhaps not ever to Spurs.