Another interesting transfer market week is in the books: Roma was the most active among the top teams, both acquiring and selling players. After three solid seasons, Stephan El Shaarawy was lured away by Chinese money, while Pau Lopez from Real Betis is their new starting goalkeeper. They let go two fringe players: Gerson joined Flamengo after the up-and-down loan spell to Fiorentina, while Ivan Marcano returned to Porto after failing to make an impression last season. After much wait, Inter finally concluded the negotiation to sign Nicolò Barella from Cagliari, while Milan announced Rade Krunic.
Lazio landed Manuel Lazzari from SPAL, which signed Marco D’Alessandro from Atalanta, who is coming off a productive yet injury-ravaged season at Udinese, where he showed he can be pretty effective as wingback. The Estensi also got Alessandro Murgia in the deal, who was pretty useful in his previous spell there and has some fantasy appeal since he takes care of set pieces.
A strong week for Sassuolo, which continued the Serie A raid of Empoli by poaching Francesco Caputo and Hamed Traorè, in collaboration with Juventus, and found the Pol Lirola replacement in Jeremy Toljan from Borussia Dortmund. Caputo scored 16 times in a less offensive-oriented side and could be in a terrific stop going forward, especially if they sell Kevin-Prince Boateng and Khouma Babacar as rumoured. Traorè was one of the brightest prospects of last season and, even though they are different kind of players, he could slide in and absorb Stefano Sensi playing time.
Parma got busy too: they reached an agreement with Napoli to bring back both Luigi Sepe, who will continue to be their #1, and Alberto Grassi, who lost half a year due to an ACL tear and has yet to put it all together after showing a lot of promise few years back at Atalanta. Both transferred with the formula of a loan plus obligation to buy, so they will fully become Ducali players next summer. They added another midfielder from abroad: Hernani from Zenit, who also played a season in France at Saint-Etienne in Europe. A versatile player who has impressive physical means but has yet to fully blossom. While Massimo Gobbi elected to retire, they brought in a new fullback, Vincent Laurini from Fiorentina, who will challenge Simone Iacoponi for minutes at right back and will be their first option on the flank when they use a three-man back-line.
Sampdoria cashed in on Joachim Andersen as expected, but the Serie A giants were beaten by Olympique Lyonnais in the race to buy him. However, the Blucerchiati rebounded nicely with Jeison Murillo from Valencia, who fared decently at Inter before departing for Spain. They can now boast a very muscular and twitchy pair in the back with him and Omar Colley. They also purchased Tommaso Augello from Spezia, who is initially projected to back up Nicola Murru at left back since Junior Tavares was not retained.
Genoa continue to work on their roster and added Antonio Barreca from Monaco, who was good in Torino before going abroad. He is candidate to be a sneaky fantasy contributor considering how much success Marko Pajac had in that role at Empoli. Bologna acquired another centre-back, Takehiro Tomiyasu from Sint-Truiden, the third one in this window, but they also sold one, Filip Helander to Glasgow Rangers.
Brescia have their new starting goalie in Jesse Joronen from Copenhagen, while Lecce brought in Luca Rossettini, who will play in his fifth team in as many seasons, and Gianluca Lapadula, who will try to bounce back after two rough years in Genoa. Verona got Emmanuel Badu from Udinese to increase the physicality of their midfield. Cagliari acquired Federico Mattiello, who is already familiar with Rolando Maran and can feature on either side and could therefore be useful since they have lost both Darijo Srna and Luca Pellegrini.
Few players have left Serie A: SPAL bid farewell to Mirko Antenucci and Filippo Costa, who will both play at Bari even though the latter was formally sign by Napoli first. Antenucci was outstanding in 2017/2018 but his efficacy dipped last season and both parts elected to move on. Karim Laribi will not continue with Hellas since he was sent to Empoli, while former Lecce Antonio Marino will play in Venezia.
Sign up to eurofantasyleague.com the game where football fans meet to compete.
To leave a comment, you must be logged into www.eurofantasyleague.com