Pleat to move for Butt

Tottenham may turn to Nicky Butt after acting manager David Pleat ruled out a move for Leicester's Muzzy Izzet.

Any Spurs interest is likely to emerge in the form of a proposed loan deal in preference to a £5million bid for the 29-year-old Manchester United star.

Pleat said: "We are not interested in Izzet. I am quite happy with the midfield apart from the possible addition of someone with leadership type qualities.

"We are looking at the possibility of bringing someone in like that on loan. This is likely to be a Premiership player who has been displaced from the first team."

Spurs missed out on landing Edgar Davids, who chose to join Barcelona on loan. They held numerous talks with Juventus but Davids, whose contract with the Serie A side expires in the summer, becomes instead the sixth Dutchman at Barcelona.

Pleat added: "I had been working on this deal for three weeks and we were as close as we could be to getting him. This was not a flyer, this was a genuine attempt to land a player of his quality on loan.

"Juventus did not want him to go to another Italian club and were quite happy to push the deal our way. I devoted a lot of time to trying to get the player. It was, in the end, the Dutch connection at Barcelona which settled things."

Meanwhile, Pleat admitted that number one managerial target Giovanni Trapattoni was at their game last week with Birmingham, when further talks were held.

Michael Brown boosted his chances of making his debut against Liverpool on Saturday by scoring twice in the reserves' 5-0 win over Coventry last night. The former Sheffield United midfielder scored once in each half at Stevenage.

Helder Postiga opened the scoring and Jamie Slabber and Rohan Ricketts completed the rout.