23-year-old Israeli soccer star Manor Solomon has reportedly reached a verbal agreement with the English Premier League soccer club.
By Shiryn Ghermezian, The Algemeiner
Rising Israeli soccer star Manor Solomon has reached a verbal agreement with the English Premier League soccer club Tottenham Hotspur and will sign a five-year deal with the team as a free agent, The Guardian reported on Monday.
The 23-year-old winger will undergo medical tests on Tuesday before signing his contract with the team, whose new manager Ange Postecoglu began last month. He is also expected to move to north London, according to the British daily newspaper.
Tottenham Hotspur has been vying for a chance to sign Solomon for some time now and was a top contender to offer the athlete a deal. The contract, which was brokered by Israeli agent Pini Zahavi, will make Solomon the fourth athlete that Tottenham has signed this summer after winger Dejan Kulusevski, goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicari and midfielder James Maddison.
The former Maccabi Petah Tikva player has been playing for the west London club Fulham since the summer of 2022 and put on a show-stopping performance during his time with the team, scoring five times in five consecutive games during a total of 24 appearances.
Solomon was one of only four Fulham players to bury the ball in the back of the net in four consecutive Premier League matches. He was nominated for FIFA’s Premier League Player of the Month award and the Premier League’s Budweiser Goal of the Month award. His former boss at Maccabi Petah Tikva nicknamed him “Manor Star” and his Fulham teammate Neeskins Kebano said he calls the athlete Pikachu, after the electric Pokemon character, “because he’s fast as lightning.”
Solomon was playing for Fulham on a one-year deal while on loan from the Ukrainian soccer team Shakhtar Donetsk as part of a FIFA regulation that allowed foreign, Ukraine-based players to suspend their contracts and play for other teams during the country’s war with Russia. Solomon opened up in an interview earlier this year about fleeing Ukraine during the Russian invasion in February 2022.
Solomon scored four goals in 16 Champions League appearances with Shakhtar. His contact with the Ukrainian team expires on December 31, 2023, and after that, in light of the FIFA ruling, he can sign with a new club for no fee.
Tottenham Hotspur finished eighth in the Premier League last season.
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