Today’s Italian newspapers are in no doubt about why Piero Ausilio was in both the Santiago Bernabéu and Stade Louis II this week.
According to Corriere dello Sport, Inter’s sporting director has discussed a number of potential deals with powerful agent Jorge Mendes. Real Madrid’s James Rodríguez and Fabinho of Monaco are the Nerazzurri’s two prime targets this summer.
The Colombian midfielder is set to leave the Spanish capital and would cost around €60 million, while the Brazilian’s price tag is approximately €30 million. Ambitious, but with Suning’s financial muscle, definitely not unattainable. The biggest obstacle could be the potential lack of European football on offer to the players, but this can be overcome by proposing a winning project and large salaries.
Tottenham Hotspur duo Toby Alderweireld and Kyle Walker are also on the Beneamata’s radar, while FC Porto centre-back Felipe is liked by Ausilio and his team of scouts. Fabinho’s teammates Kylian Mbappé and Tiemoué Bakayoko are being closely watched as well. Watch this space!
Meanwhile, the Rome-based newspaper has revealed that Udinese were once in pole position to sign Monegasque left-back Benjamin Mendy. Inter were also in talks with him when he was a 16-year-old learning his trade in Le Havre’s academy, but he eventually opted to remain in France and join Marseille.
Source: Corriere dello Sport
I’d rather sign serie a proven players such as the likes of Nainngolan 60m, Rudiger 30m, Bernardeschi 40m and Spinazzola 20m (I know he’s from Juve and it would be difficult but they already have great fullbacks) and if not Ricardo Rodriguez, then we could make Ansaldi and Dambo fight for the right winger position.
Very wise brother
I would be OK on spending 60M on James if few things would be looked first, if we sell Banega for 25-30M OR keep Banega and sell Brozo. Although he should be shipped out anyways. He is useless and a liability on the field. And if we buy fullbacks first. Mendy or R.Rodriguez for left side. And Conti or Benjamin Henrichs or even Fabinho for right side.
James is a total beast with Colombian national team mainly because the game is played around him, he is in charge of freekicks etc. They are using him wrongly at RM. Playing him at the flank and not giving him the free role what it requires to get the best out of him. Ronaldo always shoots freekicks and sucks at them, James could deliver so much better..
Also when James plays for RM he delivers 80% of the time. He gets an assist or goal and is deadly accurate with his shots. I can see us playing 4-3-3 with Gagliardini – J.Mario and James as midfielders. Kondogbia as sub.
Mbappe is a distant dream only, with his current form and every european team after him I don’t see how we could get him. But surely he is much better than Gabigol.
Sure, blow half the budget on another attacking midfielder that we don’t need. Blow the other half on an unproven wonderkid just like the one we have on the bench. Keep relying on lords Naga and Dumbo to finally develop a brain and start playing. Profit.
We don’t know anything about the budget except media speculation. But these rumours about James are very worrying. We know they tried to sign him last summer so it’s possible they might try again. If the budget is 150 mil and 60 goes to James we are fucked. But if the budget is like 300 mil then I don’t care if they sign him. That would still be stupid, but it’s not my money.
Verratti’s agent did say that suning wants to revolutionase the market. 150 mil is on revolution, 300-400 mil would be. So we’ll see. I’m also afraid they’re gonna buy like last summer.
How come we are fucked? 150M budget plus sales is plenty enough even with spending 60M on James. That would leave immidiately 90M for other purchases. 40M on Manolas + 20M on R.Rodriguez or maybe 20-30M for Mendy. And 15M for Conti. That would make the spending around 150M.
Then with sales coming from Jovetic, Rano, Brozo, maybe Banega, hopefully Nagatomo and Santon. This would make around 80M in total. That money re-investing on Italian rising players in the name of Berardi or Bernardeschi.
The fact is though that we need to focus on buying better fullbacks and also make the whole squad a bit smaller if we only participate on Serie A and coppa.
Are you sure we’re gonna get that 80 mil for our crappy players. Maybe 40 would be more realistic, if we get even that. And that money will most likely come at a point when all our defensive targets are sold. And those defenders don’t come for cheap price – if they are top class. Are you really sure we’ll sell Banega for 30 mil? He might not wanna go to the team that would pay that price, so what do we do? Yes, send him on loan to a team he wants to go. Signing James is buying a player for that one place where we are stacked.
I meant by saying “we are fucked” that we’d be doing same mistakes as last summer: buying an amc (Joao Mario) when we needed players for other positions as we already had Banega and even Brozo for that position. And James is skilfull, but we need team players and not primadonnas. He has become a diva at Madrid.
And the attacking players we need are not amc like James. We need at least one good winger. So if you buy James for 60 with 150 budget you might be screwed as you can’t be sure what you get from transfers. And we need a mc/dmc also to rotate with Kondo-Gaglia. Maybe James can do that? So yes, buying James with 150 budget is just plain stupid.
Thx for clarifying your thoughts mate! Yeah, buying J.Mario seemed to be a bit of “panic” or buying for fun kind of decision, but I think that he has proven to be quality with still room for improvement. I still see him more as modern Box to Box kindish midfielder than a pure amc.
I came to 80M like this: 15M from Jovetic, 15M from Ranocchia ( Its PL and he has played well), 25M from Brozo, 25M from Banega, and anything for Naga + Santon would be plus! I would never agree on loaning Banega, never. That would be shitty business. Unless 1 year loan would make the purchase mandatory for the other team.
My ideal situation would be that we keep Banega, and we would rotate Gagliardini – Kondogbia and J.Mario in lower midfield positions in 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3. And we would rotate James and Banega as amc position. With these 5 players our midfield would be ready in my opinion.
Sometimes the best players are a bit primadonnas who know their worth. RM play James out of position mostly on the right wing but still he delivers with goals and assists. He is awesome when he plays for Colombia – a team player who is the heart of their attack.
Atleast R.Rodriguez has a 22M buyout-clause so his price would be cheap considering he is top class. I don’t know how high Monaco value Mendy but he might be more expensive.
Conti would not be top class, buying him would mean investing in his potential and knowing that he would be good enough to reach top 4 finish next season.
I mean I’d be fine if James comes, but with a budget of 150 I think it would be safer to concentrate on positions where we badly need new players. We have such a bad history trying to our dead woods – they just don’t want to move to lower clubs. We can’t even count Jovetic as a done deal until it’s done. I’d also like to see JM on lower positions, but Pioli obviously doesn’t see him there, at least yet.
But luckily this conversation is just speculation as we don’t know what the budget will be. James could turn out to be great, but I’m worried about his attitude. And in a scenario where we get Simeone James might become redundant as Simeone wants only players that run their socks off.
True true, fullbacks are the top priority! Hopefully Jovetic stays healthy, it would up the chances that they purchase him.
Yeah he might not fit on Simeones line-up and probly James would not even join us since we won’t be on UCL or even EL next season.
My biggest hope is that we would get our plans straight right when summer starts and Pioli or some other coach would have the whole preseason time to adjust the team and playingstyle to his liking. Hopefully possible purchases also quite early and not 2weeks before season.
Cheers mate!
My pleasure! When the media says our budget will be 200 mil we can have another debate about that too 😀
Word. No need that childish attitude with “could be” players, it’s necessary to spend wisely, we are not in a position to take risks, the team should be built and than we can gamble, but we need at least one real champion in the squad to lead the others.
I agree that we should not break the bank for Mbappe. Or maybe we could, but why would he join us at this point? We don’t offer UCL. Only thing better than Real, Chelsea, Utd than we offer would be starting spot.
BUT i do not agree when you call him unproven wonderkind. Sure he is young but he has shown his abilities this season scoring in Ligue 1 and UCL. He is nothing like G.Barbosa. He was a big deal in Brasil and played OK Olympic tournament but Mbappe is much higher lvl player whom has shown his quality in europe already.
And James i would gladly accept for 60M. We can ship Brozo out and if we also sell Banega he would be a great upgrade for trequartista position. He is phenomenal at Colombian NT and would be also in Real, but they tend to play him out of position and not freely as trequartista, a position which he is easily worlds top 5 player.
I also have really positive memories of players who come from Madrid!
James Rodríguez for 60 mil? that’s a no no if you ask me
Fullbacks should be first priority
Get Mendy and… Hmm… Mbappe!
James is slow player with diva attitude, while we have Mario and Banega, we don’t really need him.
Fabinho is the only one needed, we have Mario so there’s no point in bringing James. I don’t think we should spend 100m on Mbappe considering that we spend 30m on Gabigol and he’s a flop atm.
I see nothing that special in Fabinho.
Actually he’s Monaco’s best player.
No way… He’s good, but not that good.
I have a feeling suning wants to bring James for marketing reasons. Then it’s bye bye Banega. 100 million for Mbappe is madness, but he’s much better than Gabigol.
Mbappe is a beast and he is showing it in UCL not Brazil league, he can be the next big thing.
But I don’t like James.
I think nobody likes James except suning 😀