Tottenham Hotspur sell Lewis Holtby to Hamburg for £4.6m

Tottenham Hotspur have raised €6.5m (£4.6m) from the sale of Lewis Holtby to Hamburg. The deal represents a healthy profit on a player they signed for £1.5m from Schalke in January 2013 and who struggled to establish himself.

Holtby arrived to great excitement after Tottenham brought forward his planned free transfer in the summer of 2013 by six months to cover a serious injury to Sandro. A fee was paid to Schalke but the chairman, Daniel Levy, recognised that the deal still represented a bargain. He has been vindicated even though, for all of Holtby’s promise and exuberance, the midfielder did not make the hoped-for impression at White Hart Lane.

The 24-year-old was loaned to Fulham for the second half of 2013-14 and spent last season on loan at Hamburg. He tasted relegation with Fulham from the Premier League but he helped Hamburg to beat the drop from the Bundesliga – defeating Karlsruhe in a dramatic relegation play-off.

Hamburg have now activated the clause in Holtby’s loan agreement to make the transfer permanent. His contract at Tottenham had two more years to run.

Earlier in the week, Tottenham sold another unwanted midfielder, Paulinho, to Guangzhou Evergrande in China for £10m and they intend to prune their squad further before the closure of the summer window. They want to move on Younes Kaboul, Vlad Chiriches, Etienne Capoue, Aaron Lennon, Emmanuel Adebayor and Roberto Soldado.

Tottenham are among the interested clubs for the Atlético Madrid defender, Toby Alderweireld; Southampton, for whom he played last season on loan, also want him.


By David Hytner / Guardian