A pretty eventful deadline day in Italy ended with the most anticipated news of the summer as Mauro Icardi finally left Inter to join PSG on loan with option. Roma finished off their summer with two more international additions: Nikola Kalinic and Henryk Mkhitaryan, while Milan brought in another striker in Ante Rebic, sending André Silva to Eintracht Frankfurt in return.
Napoli rounded up their attack by signing free agent Fernando Llorente, who is back in Italy after playing for two seasons at Juventus. The Spaniard has not been prolific with Tottenham, just two goals in Premier League in the last two seasons while he scored a bit more in the various cups, but they wanted a back-up for Arkadiusz Milik and he could be useful in late-game situations.
Torino got their main target Simone Verdi, who could not find much room at Napoli but was great in Bologna two years ago. He will help them mitigate the absence of Iago Falque and will allow them to play with two wingers more consistently if they want. He had ten goals and ten assists in 2017/2019.
Parma pulled off a massive move for them by signing Matteo Darmian on a permanent deal from Manchester United. He did not play much in the last two seasons in England, but he was a very solid fullback at Torino before leaving Italy. He will try to make a case for the Euro 2020 roster and will obviously unseat one of their starters, either Vincent Laurini or Simone Iacoponi.
Fiorentina’s lengthy chase was attackers ended with Pedro, a highly touted and prolific centre-forward from Fluminense, and Rachid Ghezzal from Leicester, who has not done much in Premier League but had some success in Ligue 1 at Monaco and Olympique Lyonnais. Pedro will compete with Kevin-Prince Boateng and Dusan Vlahovic, while Ghezzal enters the relatively crowded rotation on the flanks.
Atalanta bid farewell to Martin Skrtel after just a month, as he apparently was not comfortable in a three-man line, and brought in another player with some international experience: Simon Kjaer from Sevilla, who previously played at Palermo and Roma.
Udinese brought back Stefano Okaka from Watford, who scored six times in 16 appearances last season and could have a similar role. Brescia reunited Alessandro Matri with Mario Balotelli and the veteran striker will have more chances to play here. The Rondinelle also signed Romulo from Genoa, who will be able to feature in a pair of positions for them and will likely get more looks in the midfield. He was okay at Lazio in the second half of last season. Genoa replaced him with Peter Ankersen from Copenhagen, a pretty good right back that will alternate with Paolo Ghiglione on that flank. The Griffon also added Edoardo Goldaniga, who was a starter last season at Frosinone, to have more depth in their back-line.
Sassuolo changed half of their defense as they deemed Andreaw Gravillon unready for primetime and sent him to Ascoli, replacing him with an established centre-back such as Vlad Chiriches, who has been a reliable back-up for years at Napoli, and another youngster, Andrea Romagna, who got some playing time but never became a starter in Cagliari. Georgios Kyriakoupoulous will instead contribute to replacing the injured Rogerio in the early portion of the season.
Two newly promoted teams got the strikers they wanted: Lecce acquired Khouma Babacar on loan from Sassuolo, who was not great with the Neroverdi last season but meshes pretty well with their options up front, while Verona purchased Mariusz Stepinski from Chievo, who was underwhelming in a featured role in 2018/2019 but will try to ameliorate this year.
Jacopo Sala moved to SPAL and could get a good amount playing time thanks to his versatility as they are pretty thin on the flanks and he has been decent when given minutes at Sampdoria. Two new back-up goalkeepers returned to Serie A: the Blucerchiati signed Andrea Seculin, while Torino inked Samir Ujkani to a deal.
As always, teams offloaded extra players and loaned youngsters to Serie B: Lazio’s Wallace, who had some ups and big downs in Lazio, moved to Braga on a season-long loan with option to buy. Cagliari sent Kiril Despodov to Sturm Graz and Filip Bradaric to Hajduk Split since they would not have played much after their summer additions. Ditto for Sassuolo’s Enrico Brignola, who joined Livorno, and SPAL’s Lorenzo Dickmann, who will play at Chievo. Veteran midfielder Luca Rigoni has left Parma to return to the club where he started his career, Vicenza. Bologna’s Diego Falcinelli could not find a Serie A side and elected to go back to Perugia, where he first emerged in 2014.
Cremonese was weirdly one of the main protagonists as they poached Micheal Kingsley from Bologna, who started in the opener but that was before they purchased Gary Medel, Samuel Gustafson from Torino, who is coming off a loan spell at Verona, and Fabio Ceravolo, who was ineffective at Parma last season but has been one of top Serie B strikers in recent years.
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