{"id":738718,"date":"2026-08-15T10:12:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T10:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/738718\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T10:12:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T10:12:17","slug":"middlesbrough-set-to-sign-tottenhams-ashley-phillips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/738718\/","title":{"rendered":"Middlesbrough set to sign Tottenham&#8217;s Ashley Phillips"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  Phillips was initially expected to join <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenorthernecho.co.uk\/sport\/football\/middlesbrough\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Boro<\/a> last weekend but the deal was then placed on pause.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  But <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenorthernecho.co.uk\/sport\/26449087.middlesbrough-move-spurs-ashley-phillips-placed-pause\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">as revealed by the Northern Echo at the time<\/a>, the deal was never off and further discussions took place between <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenorthernecho.co.uk\/sport\/football\/middlesbrough?ref=au\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Boro<\/a> and Tottenham officials this week.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  An agreement is now understood to have been reached and Phillips is now expected on Teesside. It&#8217;s understood he will sign a five-year deal with the Championship club.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  RECOMMENDED READING:\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The arrival of the 21-year-old will be another major boost for Boro, who have landed a string of leading transfer targets this summer.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Strengthening at centre-half was identified as a priority, particularly after the exit of Dael Fry, and Phillips, who made 83 appearances in two impressive loan spells at Stoke City, was the top target.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The Manchester-born centre-half began his career in the youth set-up at Blackburn before making a \u00a32m move to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He&#8217;s continued his impressive development and was in-demand this summer, but Boro look to have once again beaten off fierce competition, as was also the case with the likes of Will Lankshear, Radek Vitek and Sebastian Berhalter.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Phillips is understood to have already visited Boro&#8217;s Rockliffe training base and had a look around the area earlier this month.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Providing everything goes to plan &#8211; as expected &#8211; in the next 24-48 hours, the arrival of Phillips will be another major box ticked for Boro ahead of the final fortnight of the summer transfer window.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Boro are also keen to add a central midfielder and a wide attacker to their ranks ahead of the deadline on Tuesday, September 1. Boro kick off their Championship campaign at home to Lincoln City today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phillips was initially expected to join Boro last weekend but the deal was then placed on pause. But&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-738718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}