Tottenham Hotspur have been handed a boost in their bid to bring Takehiro Tomiyasu to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this summer.

What's the talk?

That's according to a report by Italian media outlet Calciomercato (via Sport Witness), who claim that Atalanta BC will be pulling out of the race to sign the Bologna FC 1909 centre-back, as the gap between the €20m (£17m) the La Dea are willing to pay for the defender and the €25m (£21.5m) Bologna are demanding to sanction his sale is not being closed in negotiations.

Tottenham Hotspur have also been linked with a move for the defender in recent days, with Fabio Paratici believed to have made a €20m (£17m) offer for the Japan international, and, with Atalanta appearing to be out of the race to sign the 22-year-old, Spurs could now have something of a free run at the centre-back.

Paratici will be buzzing

While the likes of Arsenal and West Ham United have both been credited with an interest in Tomiyasu this summer, the fact that an actively bidding rival in Atalanta have dropped out of the race for the defender's signature is sure to have left Paratici buzzing.

While previously it had looked as if Tottenham could be drawn into something of a bidding war for the £18m-rated man, with the Serie A now out of the picture, the director of football finds himself in a much greater position of negotiating power for the centre-back who highly impressed in Italy last season.

Indeed, over his 31 Serie A appearances for Sinisa Mihajlovic's side last term, Tomiyasu helped his team keep four clean sheets, as well as making an average of 1.7 interceptions, 1.5 tackles, 3.3 clearances and winning 5.4 duels per game.

The £13k-per-week defender also chipped in for Bologna going forwards, scoring two goals, as well as taking an average of 0.5 shots and making 0.3 key passes per league fixture.

These returns saw the man Mitchell Dijks dubbed a "warrior" earn a seasonal SofaScore match rating of 6.86, ranking him as I Rossoblu's joint eighth-best performer in the top flight of Italian football.

As such, it would very much seem as if Tomiyasu would make a fantastic addition to Nuno Espirito Santo's options in the heart of the Tottenham backline ahead of next season. Following the latest news regarding Atalanta's withdrawal in the race for his signature, Spurs fans could well be seeing the Japanese star in action at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the not so distant future.

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