After a meeting between the two clubs on Friday, Juventus and Sassuolo are yet to reach an agreement for Manuel Locatelli. The Italian is widely expected to complete a transfer to Turin, but the Emilians are proving to be tough negotiators.
According to Calciomercato, the Bianconeri have proposed to take the player on an initial two-year loan deal with an obligation to buy if certain conditions were to be met in the second season – most likely Champions League qualification.
Moreover, this operation would be worth 30 million euros in total, and as you would expect, the Neroverdi were far from happy with these terms.
Sassuolo CEO, Giovanni Carnevali, had set Locatelli’s price at 40 millions, and if Juventus were to take him on loan next season, their counterparts would only give their consent to the operation after adding a guaranteed obligation to buy.
In the meantime, Arsenal are still waiting for the opportunity to pounce on the situation. The Gunners are willing to meet the club’s asking price, but the midfielder remains unconvinced, preferring to join some of his Azzurri teammates in Turin.
Despite the rejection, new sporting director, Federico Cherubini, is still confident of reaching an agreement for the club’s number one transfer target, with more talks set to be conducted in the coming days.
Locatelli is a Milan youth product who managed to impress during his stint at Sassuolo, and earned more praise following his performance against Switzerland in Euro 2020.
They are stretching this out to distract from the fact our mercato is going to be pretty low key, so ‘look over here don’t look over there’. We know it wasn’t a serious bid. Sassuolo using arsenal when they know even if the player didn’t want Juventus , didn’t want champions league and wanted a top 6 and lower team in the TV league he still want his azurri career to continue. It won’t in a team hidden in the shadows