Tottenham Hotspur 'reach agreement to sign Ruslan Malinovskyi in January'

The 29-year-old was briefly linked with a move to North London in the summer transfer window before entering the final year of his contract with Gian Piero Gasperini's side.

Malinovskyi's chances of a renewal with Atalanta are seemingly slim, as the Ukraine international has struggled to earn regular starts for the Serie A side in the current season.

Malinovskyi has scored once and provided one assists in 11 Serie A outings this term, but he has only started four of those games - appearing off the bench in a further seven.

In order to avoid losing the 29-year-old on a free transfer in the summer window, Atalanta are supposedly open to letting him leave for a cut-price fee in the January window instead.

According to Italian outlet Il Giorno - via The Express - Tottenham have now struck a deal to sign Malinovskyi and will pay £13m to acquire the former Shakhtar Donetsk and Genk man in January.

Such a move will bring Malinovskyi's time in Italy to an end, having registered 30 goals and 27 assists in 139 outings for Atalanta since arriving in the summer of 2019.

The versatile midfielder had established himself as a regular under Gasperini, but Ademola Lookman, Ederson, Mario Pasalic and Jeremie Boga are also jostling for places in the Dea setup.

Tottenham have frequently dipped into the Serie A market since bringing Fabio Paratici and Antonio Conte to the club, including in January, bringing in Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski from Juventus to great effect.

Both players were integral cogs in the Tottenham side that pipped Arsenal to Champions League qualification, and Tottenham also poached Ivan Perisic and Destiny Udogie from Serie A over the summer.

Udogie will remain on loan at Udinese until the end of the campaign, but Tottenham are expected to back Conte with funds in January as Spurs aim to keep pace with Arsenal and Manchester City at the top of the Premier League table.

A recent report claimed that Conte wanted to bring in a striker, a midfielder and a versatile defender halfway through the season, but he still believes that Spurs need a few more transfer windows to be able to challenge for trophies.

"I think my only worries in this moment is we have to try to keep the fingers crossed and don't have injuries because we are not a team with such a depth of squad to face competitions like the Premier League and Champions League," Conte told reporters earlier in the autumn.

"At the start of this season I said to you that we need to go step by step and have time and patience and have two or three transfer markets to bring this squad to be competitive to play in two competitions like Premier League and Champions League."

Tottenham may be able to welcome Kulusevski back to the squad for Sunday's Premier League showdown with Liverpool, with the Juventus loanee now back in training, but fellow attackers Richarlison, Son Heung-min and Lucas Moura could potentially all miss out.