TalkSPORT journalist Alex Crook believes Tottenham Hotspur held their nerve and waited for Middlesbrough to accept a lower offer than the latter wanted for wing-back Djed Spence, speaking to Give Me Sport.

The Northern Echo previously revealed that the Championship side were holding out for a fee of higher than £20m for his services after seeing him impress at Nottingham Forest last season.

They were able to set this price tag because of the fact he still has two years left on his contract at the Riverside Stadium, signing an extension before making the temporary move to the City Ground.

However, The Times believes Spurs have managed to secure a £12m agreement for his services, much less than what many would have expected considering he was the subject of interest from elite sides across Europe.

But none of these other sides, including Forest who focused on other targets instead, made a firm bid to lure the England international away from the Riverside with Antonio Conte's men being in pole position to secure this agreement for a while.

And Crook believes Spurs remained firm at the negotiating table and waited for the Teesside outfit to cave in, with Spence not even guaranteed to be in the starting lineup next term if he had remained at his current club.

The reporter said: "I think Tottenham felt the longer the window dragged on, Middlesbrough and certainly Chris Wilder, would be keen to part company with Spence.

"They eventually had to bow to Tottenham’s asking price like they appear to have done, because I couldn’t see Spurs massively improving their offer."

The Verdict:

Fair play to Spurs for holding their nerve because there was a real chance that another side could have come in and agreed a deal with Boro for the 21-year-old, even with Forest focusing on other targets and subsequently recruiting Neco Williams.

It seemed pretty clear to the outside world that the second-tier side were open to offloading the Englishman following Isaiah Jones' emergence and in the end, the latter's rise probably proved to be crucial to Conte's side getting a reasonably cheap agreement over the line.

Spence could have played on the left-hand side - but that probably would have limited Ryan Giles' playing time and you would think the Wolverhampton Wanderers man would have sought reassurances on game time before putting pen to paper on a loan agreement.

That move for Giles was a big hint on Boro's stance on Spence if it wasn't already clear - but this isn't exactly a strategical failure by Wilder's side who are probably more concerned about getting money in quickly rather than holding out for the very best price.

Having this money at their disposal now will enable them to get some of their top targets over the line ahead of others ahead of the start of the new season and this could be crucial to their promotion hopes.