Baptista a Spurs target

Real Madrid's Brazilian midfielder Baptista celebrates after scoring his second goal against Villarreal during a Spanish league football match at the Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid, May 2006. Baptista is a target for English Premiership outfit Tottenham, a sports daily has reported, saying the London side were preparing an 18-million-euro bid.

Real Madrid's Brazilian midfielder Baptista is a target for English Premiership outfit Tottenham, a sports daily has reported, saying the London side were preparing an 18-million-euro bid.

Baptista, who came to the Bernabeu only a year ago from Seville for 24.5 million euros, has been stressing for weeks that he has no intention of leaving the meringues but with the frenetic transfer activity which culminated in the arrival of Mahamadou Diarra from Lyon his future is in the balance.

Another Brazilian midfielder, Emerson, is also a new face, increasing the competition for a starting place.

Marca sports daily said Spurs hoped to tie up a deal in the next few days but Real are still pondering their options as they still have not given up hope entirely on luring Jose Antonio Reyes back to Spain from Arsenal, though AC Milan's Brazilian star Kaka appears to be a non-starter.

Baptista, who Marca quoted as saying that "I have said 300 times I am not going - I am happy here" - was last year on Arsenal's radar screen and a deal involving him and Reyes was mooted earlier in the summer.

A further unknown for Real is the future of Brazilian forward Ronaldo, who interests AC Milan although he looks set to stay in Madrid for the time being.