Fulham vice-chairman Tony Khan has criticised Tottenham's late pursuit and their initial bid for Ryan Sessegnon in the summer transfer window.
Spurs have been interested in the 19-year-old for some time and eventually sealed a deal for the teenager on deadline day, with midfielder Josh Onomah heading the other way on a permanent deal.
Tottenham chairman
Daniel Levy is renowned for his late moves in the transfer market as he looks to get the best possible price for the north London club. Spurs also signed Giovani Lo Celso on loan from Real Betis on deadline day, with an option to make the deal a permanent one at any time.
However, Khan criticised the late approach and initial offer for
Sessegnon, who had long been keen on a move to link up with
Mauricio Pochettino, as it ended up ruining their own chances of buying another player as they looked to keep onside with financial fair play regulations.
"We heard from them for the first time two weeks before the close of the window. We had been making all our deals under the assumption that
Ryan could wind the contract down and they were not going to offer us anything. I was totally prepared for that," Khan said in
an interview with Fulham Football Club TV.
"It seemed like it might be a likely scenario when he still had not heard from them a couple of weeks out, which is why I was doing loan deals where we knew the club would compliant with Financial Fair Play rules.
"We had got three of our top four targets on loan but there was still a lot of uncertainty about what we could do in the rest of the window after we got Ivan Cavaleiro, Anthony Knockaert and Harry Arter.
"It turned out we were not able to buy any players because this transaction had been held up. And when I finally got an offer it was so ridiculously low that I had to make it super clear that we were not going to take a penny less our asking price, which is exactly what we got."
Khan claimed that the deal broke down a number of times in the final days because the two London sides were so far apart in their valuations of
Sessegnon.
"If it was a penny less than our asking price I was perfectly fine for the player to wind his contract down," he explained.
"We were so far apart that 24 hours before the deadline I was prepared for Ryan to stay at Fulham this year. We were going to get every penny that we asked for, and we got every penny we asked for.
"I wish it had not taken so long. People have said 'you knew you were going to get the money, why did you not go out and spend it?' No, until we had every penny in hand I was not going to go out and spend it.
The Cottagers were not impressed with how Tottenham went about signing the teenager
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