Spurs target looking to make London home for a third time

Anyone within earshot of White Hart Lane at the moment will hear a lot of grumbling, both from fans around the ground’s periphery as well as the bellows coming out of the manager’s office.

After letting slip a 1-0 half-time lead against Newcastle, Mauricio Pochettino was left questioning his side’s mentality (a bit like his predecessor Tim Sherwood did last season).

Since then, the former Southampton boss has blamed the micro-sized Lilywhites pitch for patchy home form that ranks among the worst five in the Premier League.

Be they excuses or genuine concerns, Pochettino is certainly under the cosh in north London and needs to find a remedy for his pounding headache.

While it’s clear that additional training-ground work is at the top of the list of medicines, another foray into the January transfer market isn’t likely to be too far behind.

One man who could bolster Spurs’ flimsy backbone before then though, is free-agent Lassana Diarra who has been without a club since leaving Lokomotiv Moscow earlier in the year.

Pochettino is reportedly keen to add the Frenchman to his struggling 13/2 top-four shots, with the aim of adding some crunch to what has been a marshmallow midfield so far.

£17m-man Paulinho is now no longer making match-day squads, while Mousa Dembele has been restricted to just two top-flight starts.

With youngsters Ryan Mason and Nabil Bentaleb now more trusted to partner Etienne Capoue in the middle of the park, the former Arsenal, Chelsea and Real Madrid man’s experience and availability could be the perfect pill for Pochettino to swallow.

A failed move for Morgan Schneiderlin in the summer showed that the former Saint wanted to recruit in midfield, but an increasingly intense situation could force the 42-year-old into a pre-January shopping trip.

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