Tottenham will insist on an outright sale of Paulinho this month.

The London Evening Standard says Paulinho's former club Corinthians, as well as Cruzeiro, Inter Milan and Schalke, are monitoring the situation but are interested only in an initial loan agreement until the end of the campaign.

For Corinthians, Cruzeiro and Inter, Paulinho's £60,000-a-week wages would also represent a stumbling block.

Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy would like to extract a fee as close as possible to the sum the club paid for Paulinho, but there is an acceptance that Spurs will probably have to take a financial hit on the 26-year-old, who has failed to live up to expectations.