The Alex Sandro saga was already rather reminscient of Chelsea’s pursuit of Kalidou Koulibaly at Napoli last summer. Now, it’s officially the same thing. And that does not bode well for us. (It does bode well for Marcos Alonso, who, in fairness, didn’t do much wrong last year.)
#Juventus slam door shut on Alex Sandro unless #CFC or #PSG offer €70-75m https://t.co/w9hrYfBRSr pic.twitter.com/Ib3vmOqJfw
— footballitalia (@footballitalia) July 9, 2017
According to Sunday’s Tuttosport (via Football Italia) — so generally not the best source, but not the worst either — Juventus have “slammed the door shut” on Alex Sandro by raising his asking price to €70-€75m and imploring him at the same time to sign his new contract. Since Chelsea supposedly were (are?) willing to offer €70m (£61m) as reported by The Times a fair while back, let’s go with Juve raising the price to €75m.
We started the bidding at €50m, then €60m, then €70m. Will there be a €75m? How many weeks left in the transfer window? Almost eight? Yeah, probably.
Last summer, Napoli kept raising their asking price of Koulibaly in a frustratingly similar manner, wasting everyone’s time and forcing Chelsea to eventually work a transfer deadline day miracle with David Luiz. That’s not really a sustainable plan year-on-year, so we better figure this situation out sooner rather than later.