Source: Daily Mail

Tottenham have launched a bold £5million bid to sign Ipswich starlet Connor Wickham.

Boss Harry Redknapp wants to complete a deal in the summer for the highly-rated young striker, who only turned 17 five weeks ago.

Spurs are prepared to loan Wickham back to the Tractor Boys next season to gain further experience before adding him to the White Hart Lane staff on a permanent basis.

That will keep all parties happy after Ipswich boss Roy Keane admitted recently: 'The fans would lynch me if I sold Connor.'

Tottenham have made a habit of buying top young British talent in recent years, including Gareth Bale, Tom Huddlestone, Aaron Lennon, Jermaine Jenas, Kyle Walker, Kyle Naughton and John Bostock.

The muscular Wickham – he is 6ft 3ins tall and weighs over 14 stone – has already been tipped as a future England star. He became the youngest player in Ipswich's history when he made his debut in April last year at just 16 years and 11 days.

Despite making just 10 senior starts in the campaign just ended, he finished as the club's second-highest scorer with six goals, three of them coming in the last six fixtures. Keane was asked last week if he had received any firm interest from the Premiership's big guns – and immediately started laughing.

He said: 'I'm not going to discuss that but you can make out of my reaction what you want.

'If I was a manager of one of the big Premiership clubs I know what type of player I would be looking at.

'Theo Walcott and Gareth Bale went for big, big money and these boys had only played 15 or 20 games for Southampton.

'There are managers out there looking for young, hungry players and I can't deny there's a saying in football that every player has his price.'