Hardly pleased with the depth of centre-backs at his disposal, José Mourinho has decided he wants Milan Škriniar at Tottenham if he can.
The Portuguese manager already wanted to work with the Slovakia international during his time at Manchester United, but Inter won that race, where the defender is now out of favour under Antonio Conte.
This has pricked the ears of Mourinho in London, and meetings have already taken place on Wednesday to try and get something done.
However, the last we heard from the Italian media was that Daniel Levy wasn’t prepared to meet the €60m asking price, meaning some other formula needed to be worked on.
This is backed up by Gazzetta dello Sport on Thursday, who claim Spurs ‘could hardly satisfy’ Inter as things stand, and the €50m requested (they seem to think it’s a bit lower) is a ‘tough obstacle to overcome’.
Corriere dello Sport also report this, and they have a bit more information from the player’s end as well.
The newspaper explain selling Škriniar ‘would solve liquidity problems’ at San Siro, and the defender is ‘very tempted because he has understood he is no longer a starter and he likes the Premier League’.
It’s claimed his entourage ‘spoke with Tottenham representatives [on Wednesday] and the basis for finding an agreement (with the player) is there’.
Inter’s requests for now, on the other hand, are deemed ‘too high’ and while there was previous talk of potentially including Tanguy Ndombélé in a deal, Conte is ‘no longer interested’ in the Frenchman.
That’s a potential issue, and we’ll have to wait and see how things pan out over the next week or so.
