Sport

Kanoute set for Tottenham

Tottenham 0 PSV Eindhoven 2: Tottenham expect to tie up the transfer of Frederic Kanoute from West Ham in the next 48 hours …

Matt Scott
White Hart Lane
Mon Aug 04 2003 - 01:00

Tottenham 0 PSV Eindhoven 2: Tottenham expect to tie up the transfer of Frederic Kanoute from West Ham in the next 48 hours and will then turn their attention to capturing the Dutch midfielder Mark van Bommel.

Van Bommel, who captained PSV Eindhoven in their 2-0 win at White Hart Lane yesterday, was the subject of an approach from Chelsea last week. They are looking at their options should planned moves for Manchester United's Juan Sebastian Veron and the Roma midfielder Emerson fail to materialise.

However, Chelsea are keen to resolve all signings before the deadline for Champions League player registration on Thursday. That suggests the chance of a Van Bommel move to Stamford Bridge is diminishing as the initial contact with PSV has yet to be followed up. Tottenham are hoping to profit from the absence of a firm Chelsea offer to register their interest and to buy Van Bommel for €11 million.

But the PSV manager Guus Hiddink last night poured scorn on their hopes of prising away his inspirational midfielder. "Like (PSV striker) Mateja Kezman said last week, with all due respect to Tottenham, they are not as much of a team as we are at the moment," he said.

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Tottenham are much closer to securing Kanoute, who confirmed he would move to Spurs after a €5 million fee was agreed with West Ham on Saturday. The transfer will see Matthew Etherington move in the opposite direction after Kanoute underwent a medical at White Hart Lane.

At this stage a lack of goals is unlikely to be of concern to Hoddle, but the ease with which PSV rose above his defence at set-pieces is a problem that must be addressed before the season's opener against Birmingham in 12 days.

Despite being one of the shortest players on the pitch, the 44-times capped South Korean international Ji-Sung Park leaped above the defence at a corner to open the scoring for PSV after ten minutes. Arjen Robben added the second after a run through a Spurs defence that was without the injury victims Dean Richards and Ledley King.

TOTTENHAM (4-4-2): Keller; Carr, Perry, Gardner, Taricco; Davies (Ricketts, 3), Redknapp (Marney, 75) Anderton (Bunjevcevic h-t), Acimovic (Poyet, 62); Postiga, Keane.

PSV EINDHOVEN (4-2-3-1): Waterreus; Begelund, Hofland (Vogel h-t), Colin, Leigh; Van der Schaaf, Van Bommel; Robben, Rommedahl (Hoogstrate h-t), Park (De Jong, 75); Kezman.