Tottenham Hotspur 'accelerate' pursuit of £40,000-a-week Fulham star despite Manchester United interest

The in-form Fulham defender Tosin Adarabioyo has been attracting interest from all over the league with Tottenham Hotspur said to be ‘accelerating’ their pursuit of the 26-year-old.

Adarabioyo joined the Craven Cottage side back in October 2020 from Manchester City but with his contract set to expire this summer, he is currently weighing up several offers from around the league with TEAMTalk reporting Spurs are leading the way.

The football website previously revealed that Marco Silva’s club had been hoping to tie down the centre-back and were planning to offer him a new deal. That deal has arrived and it said to be ‘significant’ but with the likes of Spurs, Manchester United and Newcastle all supposedly keen on the former England youth international, fears are growing in the west of London that Adarabioyo will no longer don the Cottagers’ jersey from the 2024/25 campaign onwards.

Both the Red Devils and the Whites were said to have been in contact with Adarabioyo’s camp to discuss the options of a free-transfer this summer with the latest suggestions indicating Ange Postecoglou’s side have over taken Erik ten Hag in the race for the 6ft5” defender.

Spurs are very aware that with Sir Jim Ratcliffe now part of the board at Old Trafford, any bid they offer could well end any hopes Spurs have of securing the centre-back and are therefore keen to secure an agreement for the ball-playing defender sooner rather than later.

The Telegraph have also reported in the past 24 hours that Tosin has been on Newcastle’s radar as the Magpies eye cash-sensitive recruitment opportunities amid potential Profit and Sustainability breaches and an offer from the Saudi-backed Consortium which runs St James’s Park could too end Postecoglou’s ambitions of signing Fulham’s star man.

Adarabioyo began his career with Manchester City making eight first team appearances for them as well as enjoying loan spells at West Bromwich Albion and Blackburn Rovers before moving to Fulham in 2020. Described by Pep Guardiola as ‘fast, strong in the air and (possessing) the quality to look forward behind the line for the next pass’, Adarabioyo has made 14 youth appearances for England and been a huge part of Marco Silva’s success in keeping Fulham in the top-flight of English football since their promotion at the end of the 2021/22 season.