Recently appointed Tottenham Hotspur’s manager, Andre Villas-Boas has hinted that the club are tracking FC Porto midfielder Joao Moutinho to fill the gap which will be left by Luka Modric’s imminent departure.

 

Villas-Boas confirmed speculation linking the Croatian midfielder with a switch, commenting: “It’s fair to say that the club respects Luka’s ambitions and his willingness to move on and he respects the fact that he’s an important player for the club and can help us move forward.”

 

When quizzed about his targets to replace the influential midfielder, the former Chelsea manager heaped praise on Porto’s creative midfielder Moutinho, hinting that he will be one of his prime targets.

 

“He was one of the most important players at Euro 2012, he had a fantastic tournament, and also he’s an important player for Porto," said the former Porto manager. "Depending on players of this quality will always be interesting for us.”

 

However, the 34-year-old was also quick to quell the notion that the 25-year-old Portuguese midfielder was the only replacement for Modric the management are targeting and said that the Portuguese was just ‘one of the targets."

 

"It doesn’t mean that he’s the only target, but if something happened of course he’s a player we look on with some interest”, said the recently appointed Spurs manager.

 

Moutinho is highly rated and has been constantly linked with clubs such as Manchester United and Chelsea in recent years. The former Sporting CP player has scored 24 times and created 33 goals in the Portuguese league in his career.

 

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