Mousa Dembele is nearing his exit from Tottenham Hotspur after flying out of the country to finalise his move to the Chinese Super League.

The 31-year-old central midfielder has just six months left on his contract at Spurs and has been linked with two Chinese Super League sides, Beijing Guoan and Guangzhou Evergrande, and now it is the latter who looks set to seal a transfer that could be worth up to £11m.

Dembele returned to training a fortnight ago following an ankle injury, but Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino had not restored him to his matchday squads, saying he was not match fit.

Moussa Sissoko picked up a groin injury in Sunday's defeat to Manchester United, leaving Harry Winks as Tottenham's only currently fit senior central midfielder.

However, Sissoko's injury is not feared to be a serious one while Eric Dier and Victor Wanyama are approaching a return to full training in the next fortnight.

Pochettino also has high hopes for 18-year-old academy product Oliver Skipp, who has broken into the first team this season and drawn praise from his team-mates. The Spurs has previously said the teenager can go on to become a great player for the club.

football.london understands that Tottenham have sanctioned Dembele's move now in order to prevent losing him for free in the summer. The player himself was looking to move to a less physical league to help prolong a career which has been fragmented by injuries in recent seasons, including a chronic foot problem.

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The midfielder flew out to Hong Kong from Heathrow Airport's Terminal 3 on Monday morning and posed for the photo below with Tottenham fan Ryan Allen before boarding his flight.

Dembele's move will bring to a close six and a half years at Tottenham and while Pochettino has remain tight-lipped on the Belgian's future in recent days he has always had plenty of admiration for the Belgian.

"I always say to him, ‘Mousa, when I write my book, you will be one of my genius players that I have been lucky enough to meet," the Tottenham manager said last season.

"One was Maradona; also Ronaldinho, Okocha and Iván de la Peña – he was a genius, too – and then Mousa. We always tell Mousa that if we had taken him at 18 or 19, he would have become one of the best players in the world."

Dembele's last game for Spurs was the victory at Wolves on November 3 when he lasted just seven minutes before succumbing to his ankle injury.

Tottenham fans will be sad to see the Belgian go, particularly with their current injury problems, and while he has not been able to contribute as much as he would have liked in recent months he will go down as one of the club's best players of recent years.

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