Midfield rumors now (and Adrian Marín)

Let’s put all these in one spot:

possible purchases:

Stefano Sturaro—plays for Juventus. Marca says we are interested.

I don’t know a lot about him but Betis and Newcastle are also supposed to be looking at him. He’d cost about €10m; he’s shuttled between Genoa and Juventus, can play right back as well as defensive midfield. Whoscored had him as one of Juve’s lowest-rated players and says he doesn’t pass well. Not sure I Isee the rationale here.

Ignacio Camacho—plays for Wolfsburg. This makes way more sense because Camacho is a Malaga product (we like them—cf. Fornals, Casti) and has a lot of La Liga experience. Wolfsburg spent €10m on him only last fall, though, and he missed a lot of the Bundesliga season with an ankle injury and muscular issues. He’s quite versatile, can play centerback as well as defensive midfield/center midfield. I think it would take about €15m to get him; I think he would be worth the extra €5m compared to Sturaro though, assuming he’s fit. Over the past two years he’s been linked with everyone from Liverpool to Monaco to Napoli. And Betis and Valencia, of course.

Sander Berge—yes, he did come back and play for Genk as a sub against Anderlecht last week. Genk ended up missing Europe next season, so he’s certainly a guy who we could make a play for. We were linked with him earlier this year. Again, €15m or so, and competition from Betis (what a surprise!), Arsenal and Everton.

possible outs:

Roberto Soriano—no surprise, after a great first season he just hasn’t been happy or productive. Atalanta want him, as they are going to lose Bryan Cristante to either Juve or Roma, probably. We would probably be OK getting €15m for Roberto (we paid €13.75m for him). This looks likely to happen once the Bergamo side sell Cristante for €25m or else Josep Ilicic, whom Inter wants for €15m.

(You may remember Cristante himself was a name we kicked around briefly when talking about transfer targets but the consensus was he was going to be more expensive and unlikely to leave, plus he’s more of an attacking midfielder than a defensive one.)

Adrián Marín—you’ll remember we spent a good deal of time discussing his future, too. There seem to be several Primera teams interested in him, but newly-relegated Deportivo are as well. Would we be willing to let him go permanently, or just a loan? His contract runs until 2021, so I suspect the latter.