Sergio Ramos, heartfelt choice; Mehdi Taremi and the mysterious agents; Mohamed Salah, take it or leave it. Here are some of the main stories over the last few days of the transfer market from TribalFootball’s transfer expert Rudy Galetti.
SERGIO RAMOS, CHOOSING SEVILLA FOR LOVE
After almost three months of negotiations, Sergio Ramos has finally decided his future and the team he will play for this season: Sevilla.
A surprising choice, which took place within a few hours, after receiving – on Sunday – a concrete proposal from the Spanish club where Ramos played in 2004-05 before becoming an iconic player at Real Madrid.
In this long summer, Sergio flirted with several teams, first of all Galatasaray. Contacts with the Turkish club went on for many weeks, and day after day the confidence to reach an agreement grew more and more. However, in the last few days of discussions, the entourage of the Spanish player had increased their demands in terms of wages and signing bonuses and this track suddenly cooled down.
Meanwhile, from Saudi Arabia, Al Ittihad intensified the pressure on the former PSG player who – last Friday – had given verbal approval to their offer: a meeting to formalize everything was scheduled for Sunday evening, but the Sevilla’s proposal screwed it up. No Galatasaray, no Al Ittihad, Sergio Ramos has decided to stay in Spain and go “home”, to Sevilla, where 19 years ago it all began.
TAREMI AND THE MYSTERY OF THE WRONG AGENTS
Mehdi Taremi was very close to becoming a new AC Milan player in the last few days of the summer transfer session, but the story that blew up his arrival in Italy is full of grey areas.
After reaching an agreement with Porto for around €18m, the Rossoneri were unable to finalise the deal with the Iranian striker, despite the fact that the player was keen to have a new experience far from Portugal – as revealed in the previous weeks – landing in Serie A.
The problem of the failure to reach an agreement is incredible, almost comical: AC Milan, for months, carried out negotiations with the wrong agents. This was said by Pedro Pinho, the intermediary of the operation, who explained that Italian club never had contact with him. Taremi warned the Rossoneri that they were in contact with the wrong people, but for over 2 months nothing had changed.
However, in recent days AC Milan directed the negotiation correctly but the salary put on the table of €1.5m did not satisfy the requests of the Iranian player who – given the limited time available to negotiate – preferred to stay at Porto. A missed opportunity for Mehdi and a missed opportunity, in terms of fees, also for his entourage.
TOTTENHAM EMPTY SQUAD THANKS TO TURKEY
The European market is officially over, but Tottenham are still working on some possible outgoing moves to countries where the market is still open, like Turkey and Arabia.
In particular, in Turkey, Tottenham are selling two redundancies in the squad, Tanguy Ndombele and Davinson Sanchez. The French player – out of Ange Postecoglu’s technical project – had been proposed to several European clubs in these last weeks, but no concrete approach was received.
Inter asked for info, but the conditions of the possible deal weren’t considered suitable by the Nerazzurri that preferred to finalise Davy Klassen – which we will talk about later. Some Saudi teams showed cautious interest in Tanguy, but now Galatasaray are closing the deal.
Speaking about Davinson Sanchez, after 3 benches in a row in the Premier League, the Colombian centre-back is also to join Galatasaray. The Turkish club – which hoped to sign Sergio Ramos – shifted their focus to the Spurs defender: personal terms were agreed days ago and now everything has been defined between clubs as well.
SALAH, TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT
The never-ending story for Mo Salah is still ongoing. We already told you weeks ago: Al Ittihad are doing everything possible to sign the Egyptian player. The Saudi club has offered $150m to convince Liverpool to let him go. However, the position of the English club and especially of Jurgen Klopp are clear and adamant: they don’t want to lose Salah this season.
On his side, the player informed his current club that he’s open to landing in Saudi, starting a new experience abroad, but – as already revealed – given the utmost respect for Liverpool, he doesn’t want to push to change their mind.
In any case, Al Ittihad won’t give up and the feeling is that in the next hours a new offer for Salah – close to the record figure of $200m – could arrive. His teammate Andrew Robertson, in a recent interview, confirmed that “the club position was that it rejected the bid and that is what the stance was”: will it be the same even in the event of a monster proposal of around $200m? Klopp has begun trembling and is now afraid that the Liverpool board could accept an offer like that.
INTER MILAN, A LAST GIFT FOR INZAGHI
Simone Inzaghi, in the last few days of the transfer market session, had asked for another signing in midfield. A physical player who could support the weight of an offensive game, which is very taxing in terms of energy.
In the beginning, Inter had identified this profile in Tanguy Ndombele, now on his way to Galatasaray. Proposed via intermediaries to different European clubs including Inter, they gave the green light to a potential loan move for Tanguy, but confirming an important condition which had to be included in the agreement: Tottenham had to fully cover his salary. A request that was impossible to accept.
So Inter switched their sights – and also the type of player – finalizing a very different midfielder in terms of skill – Davy Klaassen. As mentioned, he has diverse characteristics to those initially requested by Inzaghi, but he probably represents an even more useful player for what Inter needs: a midfielder with strong offensive skills, the natural role of Klassen is the attacking midfielder, but it is probable that – with the tactical idea of the Italian coach – Davy can become the ideal alternative to Hakan Calhanoglu.
