Hugo Lloris unfitting end to stellar Tottenham career

A new dawn has risen at Tottenham Hotspur. New head coach, new style of football, some new players and a new outlook. Positive, stylish… fun? Yes, fun.

But revolutions are not always clean-cut. They do not happen overnight.

Davinson Sanchez and Tanguy Ndombele moved on to Galatasaray this week, another break with a former era after the departures of Harry Kane, plus Lucas Moura, Harry Winks and, to a lesser extent, Sergio Reguilon and Japhet Tanganga.

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Not everyone has made it out though, and of those who remain, the most peculiar example is Hugo Lloris.

At his best, he was one of the finest goalkeepers in world football. He was a World Cup winner in 2018 (and a World Cup finalist as recently as nine months ago), made 447 appearances for Spurs, served as club captain and, with the European transfer window having shut, he remains a Spurs player. However, there is no realistic prospect of him playing for the club again.

Spurs do not plan to include Lloris in the 25-man squad they need to submit to the Premier League by next Wednesday (September 13).

Unless the situation changes (ie, there is another serious injury), new No 1 Guglielmo Vicario, Fraser Forster and Brandon Austin will be the three goalkeepers Spurs name in their squad (Alfie Whiteman is currently sidelined after ankle surgery).

So no football for Lloris at Spurs in the next few months, or anywhere else. He did not seal a move before the window and is thought to have previously turned down the prospect of a lucrative move to Saudi Arabia, where the transfer window closes tomorrow (September 7).

All of which leaves a hugely respected and still extremely capable goalkeeper who until very recently was both Spurs and France No 1… doing nothing. Training at Spurs, training with the first team, but not playing football.

How has it come to this?

Some facts about the situation: Lloris has spent 13 years at Spurs and his contract expires next summer. In early June, the Frenchman went public with his openness to leaving the club, calling it “the end of an era” and stating he had “desires for other things”.

The following month, he decided (having been given the choice by Ange Postecoglou) not to go on Spurs’ pre-season tour to Australia and Singapore as he wanted to sort out his next club.

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“I think he deserves that respect, to garner the direction of his own future,” Postecoglou said, adding that Lloris was “not only an outstanding goalkeeper but an outstanding human”.

All very amicable and friendly. And it’s thought to have remained so throughout the final weeks of the window and through to now.

Proposals and possible deals for Lloris came and went. An offer from Saudi Arabia would have more than tripled Lloris’ £100,000-a-week wages, but that never came to fruition.

Lazio were interested but Lloris turned them down as he would have been expected to compete with established No 1 Ivan Provedel. So they signed Luigi Sepe from Salernitana as backup instead.

Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain are also thought to have enquired but, again, Lloris would not have been guaranteed first-team football.

And then, on deadline day, two possible destinations were mooted; Newcastle United and Nice. At Newcastle, he would have competed with Nick Pope, so no promise of a regular starting spot there. Nice is a more curious case — the Ligue 1 side are Lloris’ boyhood club and he even flirted publicly at the start of the summer with moving back to where it all started, making 78 appearances before those moves to Lyon and Spurs.

“Nice is my city, my club, my roots,” Lloris said in June. “We’ll see where fate takes me.”

Nice released former Leicester City goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel on deadline day — surely the stars were aligning and Lloris was going home? After all, there was barely a deal to even agree with Spurs, who were not asking for a fee of note for their former No 1.

But no, Nice left it too late, something that irked Lloris.

According to a source familiar with the situation, who remains anonymous to protect relationships, the deal never got close to being agreed — it was proposed Spurs pay up Lloris’ contract and Nice would sign the Frenchman on a free, but that didn’t suit either party.

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“An hour before the end of the window, I received a call from an agent, who brought up the possibility of joining Nice,” Lloris told Nice Matin, the local paper.

“Playing prospects and the sporting project, the real drivers behind a player’s decision, much more so than financial conditions, weren’t clearly broached.

“My professional journey has shown how much that exchange, of sharing and collective growth, have always forged my decisions, even more so when it’s about coming back to the club that trained me.

“The supporters and the team deserve better than a split-second decision based on a phone call without expectations or a clear sporting project with one hour until the closure of the window at a time where I wasn’t expecting it.

“Joining a club to play, to build, to perform, yes; signing without a sporting vision and a direct positive impact on the team, no.”

Lloris called Nice “my city, my club, my blood”. There is clearly an extremely strong depth of feeling there and his words suggest he feels disrespected. Nice had all summer to sign Lloris and according to the player, they left it until the very final hours on September 1.

There is an extremely strong depth of feeling towards Spurs, too, and that is perhaps one of the reasons behind the strange period of purgatory and limbo that Lloris now embarks upon.

Even in June, he was said to not be in a rush to leave while, for their part, Spurs were happy for Lloris to stay and offer his experience to the new No 1.

What was always clear was that Lloris did not want to be No 2 at Spurs or anywhere else.

But to end up not even being registered at the club that is paying him £100,000 a week means something has gone wrong.

One explanation seems to be Lloris’ high standards, both as a professional who wants first-team football and of someone who has not gone for the Saudi money.

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Another will surely have been family reasons — Lloris and his wife Marine have brought up their three children in London (eldest daughter Anna Rose was born in France a couple of years before Lloris moved to Spurs) and uprooting now would not be an easy decision.

From Spurs’ point of view, there will be frustration from a financial perspective of Lloris not sealing a move — if he stays until mid-January, that will be £1.8 million lost. If he lasts all the way until the end of his contract it works out as £4.2 million from now). Otherwise, there is no issue at all with Lloris being in and around the first-team group, with whom he still trains.

He has turned up on time to training every day and caused no issues.

As for him not being registered, the late exits of Sanchez and Ndombele mean he could be included in the official squad and would not generate any problems with the homegrown quota or be taking another senior player’s place.

Dier, Bryan Gil and Lloris can all fit into the quota of 17 foreign players aged over 21 that Spurs are allowed. There is a theoretical spot for him but Spurs made it clear they were moving on without Lloris some time ago.

Postecoglou said recently: “I’m not gonna have three first-team goalkeepers on my list, particularly when we’re talking about the homegrown quota, it doesn’t make sense for us to have two foreign goalkeepers on the list.

“I haven’t been involved in the process, it’s between Hugo and the club, it’s not something in my sphere of responsibility.”

Postecoglou wants players who are part of Spurs’ future and the decision to leave out Lloris is thought to have been made on that basis, for footballing reasons.

Even if Spurs were to cancel his contract now, Lloris would not be allowed to sign for another club until January.

It is a rather unsatisfactory end to an illustrious era. Even more so when you factor in his last appearance was trudging off at half-time at St James’ Park when 5-0 down to Newcastle in April.

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He’ll be fine for the next few months, training with some of his pals, seeing familiar faces every day, still spending time at the club he loves and in the city he has made his home.

But this World Cup winner who still has plenty to give won’t, unless something dramatically changes, be playing football. And that just doesn’t seem right.

(Top photo: Getty Images)

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