Inter and Atléti battle for star attacker... where are Prem clubs?

Last summer, Arsenal were the club most heavily linked to a potential transfer for Ademola Lookman. Ultimately, they decided they didn’t want to pay the €50m (currently about £43m) asking price, and Lookman was forced to returning to Atalanta training after reportedly sitting out to force a move. He then went on to have a spectacular season, and is in the transfer rumours again.

This time, there are no Premier League clubs vying for his services, as far as we can tell from the rumour rags. Inter Milan appear to lead the race for his services, while Atlético Madrid also remain interested.

The asking price remains the same, and Atalanta seem very willing to engage in a big reset after the departure of long time coach Gian Piero Gasperini. Left back Matteo Ruggeri and goalkeeper Juan Musso have been sold, also to Atlético Madrid, while striker Mateo Retegui is on the verge of a €65m move to Saudi Arabia. Midfielder Éderson has also collected a ton of interest, with a rumoured fee around €50m as well.

Gasperini’s attack-minded 3-4-3 system has often inflated player stats, which might have scared teams off Lookman last year. But he’s certainly not anything close to a one-season wonder. He backed up his 2023-24 stats by arguably performing even better last season.

Lookman overperformed his xG by 4 goals, but his shot locations were outstanding. Even if he had ended the year on 10 non-penalty goals instead of 14, you’d say this was outstanding production and shot selection from a wide forward. Any team in the world would like to get this out of their left winger.

And Lookman was just as much of a threat to set up his teammates as he was to score. I took out his set piece key passes — Atalanta didn’t make very much of those — so you can see just the open play key pass locations and how good they are.

At Inter, Lookman would play a slightly different role. He’d almost certainly still have some freedom to drift towards the left channel and cut back inside, but he’d be playing in a more traditional strike partnership than he did under Gasperini. The same is probably true at Atlético Madrid, though Diego Simeone has historically been extremely adaptable and has changed his preferred formation frequently.

It’s interesting that neither Arsenal and Chelsea have been linked to Lookman at all this window while both are still shopping around for left wingers. It’s possible that they think it’ll be difficult for Lookman to transition from the unorthodox half-winger, half-striker role that Lookman played at Atalanta into a more orthodox 4-3-3 system.

But I think Lookman is just a good player — a lot better than some other attackers who are going for more than £50m this summer.

More transfer rumours

• Liverpool have been told to do one after reportedly offering £100m for Alexander Isak. As a result, they’ve upped their bid for Hugo Ekitike, who would rather join Liverpool than Newcastle. As a result of that, Newcastle are now looking into signing Yoane Wissa.

• Man United have upped their bid for Bryan Mbeumo to £65m guaranteed + £5m of add-ons, which I imagine is good enough for Brentford?

• Kenneth Taylor has been a hyped Ajax prospect for quite some time, but seems to have stalled out just a little bit. Still, he’s a very productive passer, and FC Porto are interested in signing him. Netherlands to Portugal seems like it’s growing in popularity as a path for guys to prove if they can perform in a different league of similar quality. If Taylor can duplicate this at Porto, he’ll probably develop more of a market in other leagues.

• Here’s a funny story about a Nicolas Jackson-Alejandro Garnacho swap deal. I imagine Chelsea would want quite a bit of money to agree to this. Like, £40m or so.

• Everton are talking to Juventus about Douglas Luiz, and the Bianconeri want at least £30m for him. He’d be a good loan target with a buy option, or perhaps a much lower buy obligation a year from now, but I don’t think it’s a great buy for the Toffees.

• Speaking of Juventus, they appear close to finalizing the signings of both Jadon Sancho and Francisco Conceição for either wing. Juve is ultimately paying the full €30m from Conceição’s purchase clause, just negotiating to pay it in 4 installments instead of all this summer.

• Lorenzo Lucca is about to sign for Napoli, which will end their interest in Darwin Núñez. Is there anyone left outside of Saudi Arabia willing to come close to Liverpool’s asking price?

• Wolves are about to sign Jhon Arias, who impressed at the Club World Cup with Fluminense. His numbers in the Brasileirao don’t look good this season, and were honestly just OK last season. It’s fairly low risk at £15m, but I am not expecting a ton of production.

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