Spurs today continued with their forays into the transfer market when they announced the signing of the French U21 Captain, Defender Younes Kaboul from French side Auxerre.

This is the clubs third major signing of the summer and the fee is believed to be somewhere around £7.5 million taking our spending so far this summer to around £33 million. This surely is a sign of intemnt on the part of the board who today also made the offer to shareholders to purchase their shares that was a requirement following the purchase of Alan Sugars holding in the club. That offer is not expected to take ENICS level of ownership up to the point where they have full control. The message instead is that ENIC remain fully commiteed to the future of THFC.

In the announcement on the Clubs official site Tottenhams Sporting Director said "Younes possesses power, great pace and is good on the ball and strong in the air, - He is a good leader who showed a great desire to come to us despite interest and offers from numerous other clubs."

Younes kaboul is a highly rated youngster and Martin Jol said of him "If you ask people in France who is seen as the hottest prospect in defence they will say Younes Kaboul." Didier Zokora also thinks highly of the youngster and said "“I know Younes because I played in the French league at the same time as him. For me, he was the best young defender in France."

He is a player with UEFA cup experience having featured in that competition for Auxerre along with 52 Ligue 1 appearances and a member of Auxerres Coup de France winnning side in 2005. Given that Ledley King is liable to miss the start of the season following his summer op there is a very good chance that Spurs fans will see him partner Dawson at the back in the opening stages of the season. If he is as good as they say he will be an able replacement and should help us to get the good start we need if we are to improve on last seasons 5th place finish.

Kaboul himself was quoted as saying "I like the Premiership and Tottenham is the right club for me - now it is time to get on with it. The football in England is fast, I love the atmosphere and at Tottenham everything is here for us to succeed. I didn't hesitate in joining.".

Now I know all players tend to say the right thing when they sign but given that this was one of the worst kept secrets of the transfer market so far it does appear as though the lad did actually want to come to Spurs. Now along with Darren Bent, hopefully that signals a new phase in our attempt to gain a top four place as quality players now want to come to Spurs. We are seen as a club that is going places and young players want to be part of that as they can see that our time at the top is approaching whilst others are on the wane.

Meanwhile - the Arnesen era came to an end this week as Spurs reached agreement with Sampdoria for the permanent transfer of Reto Ziegler (Fee undisclosed but believed to be around £1.4 million). Reto came to Spurs as Levy and Sporting Director Arnesen sought to turn around our fortunes and made 35 appearances in our colours. he also had loan spells at Hamburg and Wigan before moving to Smapdoria on loan.

Also announced this week was the departure of Academy product Mark Yeates who will now join ex Spur Teddy Sheringham at Colchester United in the Championship. Yeates made four first team appearances for us and had loan spells at a number of clubs including one spell at Colchester where he featured in 44 of the 46 matches for them in the season they gained promotion to the Championship.

NLP wishes both youngsters well for the future.