Transfer News: Tottenham Hotspur targetting Juventus midfielder Manuel Locatelli to appease Antonio Conte
As per CalcioMercatoWeb via HITC (h/t Football.London), Tottenham Hotspur are interested in signing Juventus midfielder Manuel Locatelli in order to please Antonio Conte and get him to stay longer at the club.
Conte is on a contract that expires in the summer of 2023. However, trusted journalist David Ornstein has revealed that his deal can be extended by another year.
Nevertheless, Spurs apparently want to extend Conte’s contract beyond that and are targeting Locatelli as a result. He has been linked with Arsenal in the past and could be available for around £35million.
The former AC Milan and Sassuolo midfielder is a very talented defensive midfielder who can also make a difference when his team is on the attack – a good fit for the two-man midfield that Conte usually deploys in his midfield.
He has made 54 appearances for the Old Lady, scoring three goals and assisting five times during that time. Currently, we have Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Rodrigo Bentancur as our first-choice midfielders.
The Uruguayan, of course, has been Locatelli’s teammate in the past before he moved to Spurs in the winter of 2022. Yves Bissouma has been solid but he can use some more time to perhaps get used to Conte’s methods.
In the meantime, Locatelli, 24, can be a very useful addition to our team. It can’t be said that he will be an upgrade on our current options.
However, it can be said that he is a player who is one the most promising number six in Italy. The aforementioned price tag isn’t the most audacious as well.
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- Antonio Conte has requested Tottenham Hotspur to sign Napoli’s Victor Osimhen, not Lautaro Martinez
It’s hard to imagine what we would do if a similar injury crisis – the one that has plagued our frontline recently- hit our midfield, which seems understaffed even if we take away one of the senior names from the list. Prevention is better than cure.
