Tottenham target James Maddison but face competition from Liverpool and Manchester City for Norwich starlet

Tottenham are among the clubs interested in signing highly-rated Norwich City midfielder James Maddison.

Spurs have been tracking the 21-year-old since before he joined the Canaries from Coventry in February 2016 but they face competition from Liverpool, Manchester City and Leicester.

Norwich are reluctant to sell Maddison this month after allowing former Spurs winger Alex Pritchard to join Huddersfield for £11m and they would demand at least £20m for the England U21 international, who has scored seven goals this season.

Spurs, though, have sent 19-year-old winger Marcus Edwards (below) on loan to Carrow Road for the rest of the campaign and they could sign Maddison this month and loan him back to Norwich until the summer – just as they did with Dele Alli and MK Dons in February 2015.

Last month, Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino suggested that the club needed to sign English players and could do deals in January for next summer.

"It's so important today to identify our targets for next summer," Pochettino said. "Maybe we need to sign players in January and bring them in six months before. [The Dele Alli deal] is a very good example that you need to anticipate. And today we are at a club that needs to anticipate. We cannot be reactive because if we are, we are going to lose."

Spurs are also interested in adding Stevenage Borough centre-back Ben Wilmot, 18, to their academy this month, while they have recalled 20-year-old centre-back Cameron Carter-Vickers from a loan at Sheffield United.