Tottenham transfer news: Bournemouth to offer Spurs £6m for Ryan Mason

Cherrie picked: Eddie Howe keen to bring Spurs midfielder to the south coast
Clive Rose/Getty Images
Tom Collomosse6 May 2016

Ryan Mason is a transfer target for Bournemouth after struggling for playing time at Tottenham this season.

Standard Sport understands the midfielder is high on the list of the Cherries as they seek to strengthen their squad for next season, with a £6million offer being prepared. Tottenham are likely to ask for more, having successfully persuaded Newcastle to part with £12m for another of their youth products, Andros Townsend, in January.

Mason has been at Tottenham his entire career, but did not break into the first team until last season after four loan spells in the Football League and one with Lorient in France.

Mason was given his Premier League debut by Mauricio Pochettino in the 1-1 draw at Arsenal in September 2014. He rarely looked back after that, making 29 league starts and earning a new five-and-a-half-year contract in January 2015, worth about £25,000 a week. Mason also made his senior England debut last March, in a drawn friendly against Italy in Turin.

Yet ill luck with injuries, coupled with the emergence of Dele Alli and the improved form of Mousa Dembele, has left Mason on the fringes this term.

He suffered a knee injury as he scored the only goal in the 1-0 win at Sunderland last September and then damaged his ankle in the 0-0 draw with Chelsea at White Hart Lane in November. As a result, Mason has made just six league starts this term and 12 in total.

Mason is a boyhood Tottenham supporter and it would be difficult to leave the club just a year after he seemed finally to have cracked it, especially with Champions League football awaiting next season.

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Yet Spurs are known to be looking at central midfielders, as well as centre-forwards and wide attackers, to strengthen their squad. Mason turns 25 next month and needs to play regularly, especially if he is to regain his international place.

If Spurs and Bournemouth enter discussions about Mason, it raises interesting possibilities about the future of Callum Wilson.

The Bournemouth forward is believed to have admirers at Tottenham and started the season in outstanding fashion, scoring five goals in six matches before suffering knee ligament damage. He returned to the starting XI only last weekend, when Eddie Howe’s team lost 2-1 at Everton.

At 24, Wilson fits the profile of players Pochettino and his chairman Daniel Levy are targeting: young, talented, hungry and with potential for improvement.

However, it is understood that Bournemouth are determined to hang on to England Under-21 international Wilson, who they signed from Coventry two years ago.

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