Tottenham have agreed a deal to sign Mateus Fernandes from West Ham.

The fee is understood to be £85m, and the player is now preparing to undergo a medical.

That figure would smash Tottenham’s transfer record, which was a £65m deal for Dominic Solanke from Bournemouth in August 2024.

Manchester United were also pursuing Fernandes, and pushed hard to sign him, but they will only buy players at the right valuation.

If completed, the deal will easily surpass Tottenham’s transfer record, which was the £65m they paid for Dominic Solanke from Bournemouth in August 2024.

Decision-makers inside West Ham believe Fernandes was one of the best young players in the Premier League last season and has the potential to become as good as Declan Rice, who was sold to Arsenal for £105m in 2023.

Analysis: Relegated twice – so why is Fernandes worth £85m?

Sky Sports’ Sam Blitz:

Last season, Fernandes proved his status as one of the Premier League’s toughest tacklers and it’s a feature that stands out for those who know him.

“That’s no surprise that his tackling stats are very high,” Simon Rusk, who worked with Fernandes at Southampton, tells Sky Sports.

“Both speaking to him and observing him, I could see that would be a feature in his game – and a strength.”

Alongside the tough-tackling nature is a lot of high-intensity running to get to the challenge in the first place.

Fernandes sits in the top 10 Premier League midfielders for distance covered. And again, it follows the same pattern: if Anderson is the best first-choice option on the market, then Fernandes is pretty much the next best option available.

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It wasn’t always the plan when Fernandes was signed by Southampton; he was seen by then boss Russell Martin as a more advanced option.

“He was used as a little bit more as a No 10, a little bit more of an advanced role,” he says. “But when I spoke to Matty through conversations with him, quite apparently, he saw himself as more of an all-round midfield player, more of a No 8.

“And that would lend himself to the defensive side of the game. What Matty wanted to do, he wanted to run. He wanted to be involved in the game as much as possible.

“But certainly, looking at his performances at West Ham this year, he certainly moved forward in terms of his game intelligence and mixed in with his strength, his tenacity and his engine.”

West Ham noticed that desire for Fernandes to play slightly deeper too – using him mainly as a hybrid option between a No 6 and a No 8 in the season just gone.