Interested back when he was a potential free agent at Lazio, Liverpool and Manchester City never seemingly lost sight of Stefan De Vrij.
The Dutchman has enjoyed a good time at Inter, whom he joined from the Rome side back in 2018, helping them lift the Serie A trophy this time around, making 32 league appearances in the process.
Despite him being a rather key cog in Antonio Conte’s side, he appears to be one of the few players the Italian would be willing to do without next year as Inter look to sell one key asset this summer to balance the books.
The news comes from Leggo in Italy, who have a lengthy article looking at potential exits, where De Vrij’s name pops up in the column of those to potentially be sold.
It’s stated that while Conte wants to keep some of his players, there is an ‘openness to sacrifice’ Skriniar or De Vrij, both seen as ‘important but not essential’.
That being said, if they were to choose, Inter would prefer to see the Slovakian leave rather than his Dutch teammate, as he has a ‘unique’ profile in the squad.
Both are valued at around €60m, a fee that would bring ‘oxygen’ to the Suning accounts, and a bid in that region would see them shipped off on a plane with a thank you card in their luggage.
Liverpool’s need for a defender certainly isn’t new, and they are allegedly interested in Alessandro Bastoni for the role too, although the Italian is on Conte’s no-no list.
As for Manchester City, Pep Guardiola reinforced the position strongly last year, buying both Nathan Aké and Ruben Dias, so spending €60m on yet another centre-back seems like overkill.
However, things can change quickly in football, and we’ll have to wait and see which direction Jürgen Klopp and his Spanish counterpart go in the transfer market, as a nice auction for De Vrij would go down nicely at San Siro this summer.
