Big-spending Spurs eye late bid for Villa

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Head coach Juande Ramos is not satisfied with his squad despite having already seen around £46m worth of talent arrive in the form of Luka Modric, David Bentley, Heurelho Gomes, Giovani dos Santos and John Bostock.

He is determined to buy another striker, especially with Dimitar Berbatov expected to follow Robbie Keane out of White Hart Lane.

The deal to sign Andrei Arshavin from Zenit St Petersburg is proving difficult and it seems the club are considering making a last-ditch bid to buy David Villa from Valencia instead.

Spurs have admired Villa for some time, but Valencia's asking price of more than £30m had scared them off. However, no club have made a move for the Spain star so far and they haven't given up hope, particularly as money is available having recouped £37m in player sales in recent weeks.

Ramos is desperate to sign a centre half as captain Ledley King is not expected to be able to play regularly due to his old knee injuries while Younes Kaboul is set to leave.

That leaves only Jonathan Woodgate and Michael Dawson to start most games with little cover in the squad.

The manager's plans for the defence haven't been helped by an ankle injury to right-back Alan Hutton, who could miss the start of the season.

Ramos is also looking at buying a defensive midfielder and is interested in Sporting Lisbon star Miguel Veloso.

But at least Darren Bent is showing the kind of form that convinced Spurs to sign him for £16.5m from Charlton last summer. Bent scored his 10th goal of the pre-season in the 3-0 win over Borussia Dortmund yesterday and is favourite to start up front against Middlesbrough in a fortnight.

Assistant manager Gus Poyet said: "Darren has been on fire recently. We keep saying to him, 'Don't spend all the goals in pre-season, keep a few for the season'. "But it is good. Strikers need to score goals. He didn't play a lot last year, but he is playing week in, week out now. He has been the best striker in pre-season. He has got a chance."