The Nicolas Pepe transfer story is likely the most tedious of the summer. After an excellent season with Lille it was assumed a long queue of the world’s top clubs would come forward to sign him.
Despite efforts to encourage an auction, it took a while to kick off, a little like the Tanguy Ndombele situation, and the player’s very disappointing Africa Cup of Nations didn’t do much to help things.
Over the past week there’s been claims coming out of France like they’re being shot from a machine gun. On Thursday there was also commotion in Italy because Pepe’s agents had been spotted an Napoli’s training base.
Local source CalcioNapoli24 said they’d done some digging, and found out Liverpool were one of the clubs with an ‘agreement in principle’ to sign the player.
Now L’Equipe back that up, by stating: ‘The amount of the transfer should be €80m, excluding bonuses. Apart from Napoli, Inter Milan, Arsenal and Liverpool have reached this figure. Others, such as Atlético Madrid, must first sell. But they aligned themselves. Manchester United, for example, is negotiating the departure of Romelu Lukaku.’
There’s still a lot here which doesn’t make sense. In Italy they very much doubt Napoli would pay €80m including bonuses, never mind excluding them. And it’s hard to think Inter and Arsenal have a straight €80m lying around.
Manchester United’s move being dependent on Lukaku doesn’t make a great deal of sense either.
