Harry Winks has said Giovani Lo Celso can help soothe the soreness of Christian Eriksen’s imminent departure as Tottenham prepare for a changing of the guard. Internazionale hope to finalise the signing of Eriksen on a four-and-a-half-year contract in the next 48 hours and the Danish midfielder was absent from the Spurs squad at Southampton in the FA Cup fourth round on Saturday, with José Mourinho criticising the Serie A club over the unsettling timing of the transfer.
By contrast Mourinho was effusive in his praise of Lo Celso, who flourished at St Mary’s despite Sofiane Boufal forcing a replay after cancelling out Son Heung-min’s opener, for which Lo Celso was the catalyst. The Argentinian was instrumental throughout and Mourinho revealed that Tottenham plan to activate an option to sign Lo Celso from Real Betis on a permanent basis. Spurs can buy the loanee for £27.2m this month or £34m in the summer.
Asked whether the emergence of Lo Celso can help fill the impending void left by Eriksen, Winks replied: “Yes. We’ve got a lot of good midfielders at the moment. It’s quite a competitive position, there are a lot of players trying to start and trying to be in that involved in that position.
“It’s only going to bring the best out of everybody involved. He’s an exciting player and a player that the fans should be happy about. There’s a lot more to come from him in terms of what the fans can expect.”
Lo Celso had a first-half goal disallowed after an offside Son helped the ball in and the loanee shone on his fourth successive start, his eighth of the season in all competitions.
“It took him a while to get used to all the intensity and the aggression of the league but he’s flying now and he’s been fantastic,” Winks said. “He’s done really well. He’s starting to show his quality now and I think he’s playing in the favourite position, which is probably a little bit more central midfield, but he has done really well.
“He is a technically gifted player. But he is not afraid to get stuck in when he needs to as well.”
Gedson Fernandes faded on his first Tottenham start following substitute appearances against Norwich and Watford but Mourinho said the 21-year-old requires time to get up to speed. “It is not easy,” the manager said. “The Portuguese league is played at a different intensity, it is a different style. It is not easy to arrive and be ready, especially in a game like this, a game like Watford; high pressure, short spaces to play and very direct. Portuguese football is more like Spanish football so it was difficult for him but a good experience.”
Tottenham will host Southampton in the replay on 5 February, three days after entertaining Manchester City and Winks acknowledged Spurs will have to suffer if they are to earn their first silverware since 2008, when they won the League Cup under Juande Ramos.
“It’s a trophy that we really want to win, a trophy we believe we’re more than capable of winning,” the England midfielder said. “But again, we make it difficult for ourselves and have to go the long way about it. A replay now is not ideal, but we did that [made things difficult for ourselves] in the Champions League last year. And we got to the final. We tend to do it the hard way. Hopefully we can do the same with the FA Cup.
“The perfect scenario would have been to come away with the win against Manchester City next week and then go on to the winter break happy. But Southampton managed to equalise and there’s nothing we can do about it now. We have to replay now and try and get the job done.”