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In today’s Football Daily: Savinho/Sávio joins Tottenham Hotspur
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Football — Scott Murray
We see Manchester City have managed to flip Savinho for quite the profit . Football Daily had previously assumed this sort of wheeler-dealing was restricted to the Dion-Dublin-adjacent property market, or the Harry-Redknapp-infused used car scene, but it seems we were mistaken. We have no idea how City ended up trousering a £44.2m markup on a player who cost £30.8m two seasons ago, and has achieved the square root of eff all since, but they’ve done it. Consider standing stock still and allowing a ball to clank off you and into the net in an FA Cup tie at Newcastle analogous to installing a new bathroom suite and giving the front room a lick of paint, or taking a microfibre cloth and some polish to the crevices of that grimy dashboard. Result! Goal! Ker-ching! That’s 75 million-nil!
Spurs were the mark, and they could end up paying £85m if all the silverware-related add-ons kick in. So £75m it is, then. But that’s still a fair old whack for an attacking player who scored two goals for City in 53 league appearances. The 22-year-old Brazilian plays on the right flank, so will almost certainly take the place of Mikey Moore, who thought his day at Brentford last weekend had gone badly enough, only for his manager Roberto De Zerbi to go out of his way to namecheck him – and him alone, twice – in his post-match deconstruction of a 3-0 fiasco for which pretty much everyone wearing Tottenham’s traditional blue, gold and dayglo pink was culpable.
Upon signing, Savinho announced that he wishes to be known forthwith as Sávio, reverting to the monicker from his time at Girona, where he scored 11 goals and set up 10 others during a loan stint that was a damn sight more successful than his spell at the Etihad. It’s also his actual name, so there is that. Sávio is far from the first of his countrymen to toy with this most personal of brands – Brazil’s greatest-ever player was actually called Manuel Francisco dos Santos, and Pelé was the result of a name change too – and we’re pretty sure he won’t be the last. Spurs meanwhile will simply be hoping they’re getting the Girona version of their new purchase, because otherwise City will have, in more ways than one, properly flipped them off. Omar Marmoush – 16 goals in 62 appearances, brand-new kitchen worktops, shiny hubcaps – next!
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Spurs were the mark, and they could end up paying £85m if all the silverware-related add-ons kick in. So £75m it is, then. But that’s still a fair old whack for an attacking player who scored two goals for City in 53 league appearances. The 22-year-old Brazilian plays on the right flank, so will almost certainly take the place of Mikey Moore, who thought his day at Brentford last weekend had gone badly enough, only for his manager Roberto De Zerbi to go out of his way to namecheck him – and him alone, twice – in his post-match deconstruction of a 3-0 fiasco for which pretty much everyone wearing Tottenham’s traditional blue, gold and dayglo pink was culpable.
This report is published with credit to theguardian.com. Full available text from the wire is above. Read on theguardian.com →
Source: theguardian.com · Scott Murray. Published 25 Aug 2026, 02:18 pm.
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