Napoli Planning Big For The Summer After Failed Transfers

Written By Onyeka Daniel

Current Serie A leaders, Napoli were one of the highest earners in the just concluded January transfer window after they sold their star man, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia to French club, PSG and while they tried to find a replacement, they never really did.

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Instead, they only brought in Noah Okafor from AC Milan on loan after failing to get their primary targets, Alejandro Garnacho and Karim Adeyemi from Manchester United and Borussia Dortmund respectively. For the Naples-based club, they will earn €150m from Kvaratskhelia and Victor Osimhen sales.

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And according to Corriere dello Sport, they are planning a summer transfer window to really strengthen the team with these funds. As revealed by their sporting director, Giovanni Manna, the deal to bring Garnacho, Antonio Conte’s favourite, was actually disrupted by the player and his huge salary demands.

For Adeyemi, he opted to remain in Germany, while waiting for a move to England instead, while his preferred team in Italy is Juventus, hence the deal to sign him never really took shape. For Francis Amuzu, there wasn’t enough time to try and get a deal done with Anderlecht.

Consequently, a summer transfer window is being planned that involves names like former Bologna forward, Joshua Zirkzee and Ukrainian talent, Georgiy Sudakov. With a bigger transfer budget available, Napoli are expected to bring more attacking reinforcement next summer.

According to the latest report, Manchester United’s Zirkzee is among the Partenopei’s targets, just like Shakhtar talent Georgiy Sudakov, who has also been linked with Barcelona and Manchester City. Furthermore, Edon Zhegrova, Gabri Veiga, and Allan Saint-Maximin also remain on the club’s radar for next season.

In a related development, Bologna coach Vincenzo Italiano earned one more point than Thiago Motta did last season after 22 rounds, while Santiago Castro scored the same number of goals as Zirkzee but provided more assists.

Bologna have lost just one game in the last 15 across all competitions and qualified for the Coppa Italia semifinal for the first time in 26 years, beating Atalanta yesterday. Italiano has earned one more point than his predecessor, Motta, at the same stage of the season (37 to 36).

At this stage of the season, Zirkzee had scored eight goals and provided two assists. Castro has scored the same number of goals this term but has delivered seven assists so far.In the 2023–24 Serie A campaign, Zirkzee made 34 appearances for Bologna, scoring 11 goals and providing five assists.

Bologna have also scored more goals – 35 to 27 – and even if they conceded more (27 goals to 20), they have lost just three games against Motta’s four. While Castro played alongside Zirkzee at Bologna in the second part of 2023-24, he has become a more than valuable replacement to the Dutchman.

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His contribution was instrumental in Bologna securing a fifth-place finish and qualifying for the UEFA Champions League for the first time since 1965. The Rossoblu are now seventh in the Serie A table, five points below the top four, and they have a game in hand against Milan, which they will play at home.

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