{"id":5425,"date":"2026-05-07T14:46:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=5425"},"modified":"2026-05-07T14:46:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:46:47","slug":"tottenham-battle-chelsea-and-liverpool-for-brighton-defender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=5425","title":{"rendered":"Tottenham battle Chelsea and Liverpool for Brighton defender"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_79\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p><strong>Tottenham Hotspur have stepped up their interest in signing Brighton centre-back Jan Paul van Hecke.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Dutch defender is being eyed as a potential replacement for Cristian Romero, who is keen to leave North London this summer.<\/p>\n<p>Van Hecke has won admirers since his arrival at Brighton from NAC Breda, earning 10 caps for the Netherlands since his senior debut in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Spurs are keen to partner Van Hecke with international teammate Micky van de Ven, provided the North Londoners avoid Premier League relegation.<\/p>\n<p>According to TEAMtalk, Spurs have stepped up their pursuit in a bid to beat Chelsea and Liverpool to the 25-year-old\u2019s signature. Both teams have tracked the progress of Van Hecke and are in the market for centre-back reinforcements.<\/p>\n<p>Van Hecke has excelled in Brighton\u2019s possession-dominant approach, ranking in the top two percent of centre-backs in Europe for progressive carries and progressive passes completed. He will enter the final 12 months of his deal this summer, which could force Brighton into a sale.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Read \u2013\u00a0The English players with the goal contributions in Champions League knockout ties<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>See more \u2013\u00a0The four English players to have scored in multiple Champions League semi-finals<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>Follow the Football Faithful on Social Media:<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Facebook\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram\u00a0| <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FootyFaithful_\">Twitter<\/a> | YouTube | TikTok<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tottenham Hotspur have stepped up their interest in signing Brighton centre-back Jan Paul van Hecke&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}