The transfer market has yet to officially open, but the teams are free to announce the transfers if they reach agreement. Napoli made official the purchase of Giovanni Di Lorenzo from Empoli, who was a revelation in his rookie season in Serie A. The 25-year-old right back registered five goals and three assists, proving to have high motor and to be very capable on the offensive end. Carlo Ancelotti likes to rotate his fullbacks and he figures to fit in well tactically. Defensive staple Elseid Hysaj is likely to be on his way out as suggested by some of his recent words.
In the past few days, Fiorentina sold reserve midfielder Christian Norgaard to Brentford, while Sampdoria acquired the defensive prospect Julian Chabot from Groningen, whom is worth keeping an eye considering the centre-backs they launched in recent time. Edimilson Fernandes will not be staying in Florence as West Ham already sold him to Mainz. La Viola might not buy Hamed Traore from Empoli after all, as the transfer was called off despite the January announcement as there was no time to complete some deeper medical examinations.
Teams have about twenty days to make a decision on the options to buy players that were on loan in the 2018/2019 and the first ones have started to trickle in. Bologna have signed outright Nicola Sansone, whose deal had a conditioned obligation to buy tied to staying in Serie A, and Roberto Soriano from Villarreal. The two were not super prolific but were main cogs in Sinisa Mihajlovic’s scheme and significantly increased their technical level after joining in January. Danilo has become fully a Felsinep since his contract the same agreement as Sansone. Sebastian De Maio made the opposite trip, from Bologna to Udine, for the identical reason and both clubs benefitted from the additions last year.
Torino opted to redeem Koffi Djidji from Nantes for €3.5M: the muscular defender was a starter from mid-November up until the beginning of April, when a meniscus surgery cost him the final stretch of the season, and was pretty dependable. Emiliano Moretti, who filled in when the teammate went under the knife, elected to retire, so Djidji should see plenty of minutes next year. However, the Granata will be welcoming back two talented centre-backs, Kevin Bonifazi and Lyanco, who are coming off successful temporary stints at SPAL and Bologna.
Other deals were either tied to conditions that were met or were only technically loans in order to dilute the installments of the payments. For instance, Atalanta will receive this summer the bulk of the money from the sales of Franck Kessie to Milan and Bryan Cristante to Roma due to convoluted formulas. SPAL avoided relegation and thus triggered the obligation to buy Andrea Petagna and Mo Fares from Verona: despite the reasonably sizeable investments, they are certainly pleased about is as the big-bodied striker had a career year and the wingback was very solid.
Torino now fully owns Simone Zaza, who had up-and-down year but buried some big goals, and Cristian Ansaldi, who instead was awesome. They will receive a considerable compensation too as Adem Ljajic was permanently signed by Besiktas and Mbaye Niang from Rennes. Sampdoria had changed Emil Audero’s deal in January in order to cancel Juventus’ counter-option and also bought the rights of Jakub Jankto, who did not leave his mark but could bounce back next season. Sassuolo completed the acquisition of Manuel Locatelli from Milan, who surely had his moments and a high ceiling, and Merih Demiral from Antalyaspor.
Genoa has spent a considerable amount to acquire for Stefano Sturaro, who will likely miss some time at the start of next season due to a knee injury, and Andrea Favilli from Juventus, Lukas Lerager from Bordeaux, Luca Mazzitelli from Sassuolo and the promising young goalkeeper Ionut Andrei Radu from Inter, which still have an option to bring him back though. He was the only one to receive consistent playing time and impress last season. Sandro will be staying in Udine and his command and defensive skills will come in handy next year too. Cagliari had forced options to redeem Alberto Cerri from Juventus, Fabrizio Cacciatore from Chievo and Christian Oliva from Nacional: the right fullback had the biggest impact out of the trio. Alex Ferrari is now fully a Sampdoria player and will try to earn more minutes going forward, like Mattia Sprocati and José Machin in Parma.
Other deals become official due to promotions: Lecce purchases Panagiotis Tachtsidis from Nottingham Forest, while Hellas Verona had a slew of them and now fully owns Samuel Di Carmine (Perugia), Pawel Dawidowicz (Benfica), Antonio Di Gaudio (Parma), Antonino Ragusa (Sassuolo), Marco Davide Frosinone (Crotone) and Alberto Almici (Atalanta).
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