A pretty quiet week, as it is usual in the final one of July and the trend will likely continue in the first one of August as well. The biggest acquisition was made by Napoli, which signed Eljif Elmas from Fenerbahce to add another talented youngster to their midfield.
Inter parted ways with Joao Miranda, who was solid for a pair of seasons, but faded once they brought in Stefan De Vrij last season and would have been further buried in the depth chart because of Diego Godin joining, so he opted to move to Jiangsu Suning. The Beneamata has Andrea Ranocchia as back-up and could decide to keep Alessandro Bastoni, who showed decently at Parma last season.
Lazio announced the arrival of Jony from Malaga, even though the Spanish club is still arguing the validity of the release clause. The 28-year-old Spaniard is coming off a very prolific season on loan to Alaves, where he logged four goals and 11 assists, by far his best one yet. He has experience in multiple positions, but he should back up and compete with Senad Lulic as left wing back, something that another cheap reinforcement brought in in the 2018 summer, Riza Durmisi, was unable to do effectively in the last campaign. He could help them deploy a more offensive scheme down the line.
Cagliari identified their first piece to try to fill in the mammoth hole left by the departure of Nicolò Barella: Marko Rog, who was highly touted before coming to Italy but could never really crack Napoli’s rotation in a consistent manner. He played ten games at Sevilla while on loan there from January on. During his time with the Partenopei, it was not clear whether he was more of a box-to-box or a pivot, now it will be up to Rolando Maran to figure it out. The Sardinians are very likely to further shore up the midfield.
Pedro Obiang has returned to Italy after four years at West Ham as he was acquired by Sassuolo, where he will add some muscles and experience to the midfield, which, despite the sale of Stefano Sensi, remains pretty crowded since they previously added Hamed Traorè and Alfred Duncan is healthy now. Ditto for Stefano Bocchetti, who comes back to Serie A on a permanent basis after ten seasons in Russia (and six months at Milan), who will give some veteran guidance to the Verona’s back-line.
Bologna won the race to sign Andreas Skov Olsen from Nordsjaelland, who was super productive last season, netting 22 goals in the Danish league. The 19-year-old winger will compete with Riccardo Orsolini and Nicola Sansone for minutes on the flanks, giving them a ton of talent in those positions. In a perhaps correspondent move, the recently acquired Lassi Lappalainen was loaned to their MLS affiliate of Montreal Impact.
SPAL poached Federico Di Francesco from Sassuolo, who fell out of favour last season due to injuries and the emergence of Jeremie Boga and Filip Djuricic. The Estensi’s usual scheme does not include a winger, but Di Francesco might be turned into either a wing back or more likely a second-striker, where he could be fairly interesting considering their lack of pizzazz up front.
Udinese and Lecce took advantage of the fact that Palermo were unfortunately disbanded for economic reasons: the Friuliani got their best player Ilja Nestorovski, who returns to Serie A after two seasons and could absorb Stefano Okaka’s playing time, even if he has a different skill-set. He notched double-digit goals the last time he was in the top league. The Giallorossi instead signed youngsters Simone Lo Faso and Antonino Gallo and they might keep the former in the squad in order to have a deeper front-line next season.
Brescia finalized the signing of Jhon Chancellor from Al Alhi, who will compete to start in the heart of their defense. They now have the two tallest players in Serie A in goalkeeper Jesse Joronen and the 27-year-old Venezuelan. Sassuolo and Genoa completed a swap: central midfielder Francesco Cassata, who had some flashes at Frosinone last season, will play with the Griffon, while the Neroverdi purchased the young goalkeeper Alessandro Russo.
Four players have bid farewell to Serie A: long-time Cagliari staple and briefly Sampdoriano Marco Sau has transferred to Benevento, where he will be joined by Pasquale Schiattarella, who has left SPAL since they moved in different directions in the midfield. Parma overhauled that same department earlier in the window and thus sent Leo Stulac and Jacopo Dezi to Empoli, who were unable to make an impact last season.
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