It’s been decided (overnight, it seems): Napoli are willing to spend €25m on a new striker in January, and could sell one of their own to make room.
Since Arkadiusz Milik’s injury, the Serie A side have struggled to get their strikers to score goals, and Manolo Gabbiadini is looking more and more likely to be on his way out after a €25m price tag was slapped on his back.
The targets haven’t changed, with Simone Zaza still up there, and Aurelio De Laurentiis’ decision to invest should make things a bit easier to negotiate with West Ham, yet the London club still need to make a decision.
Coming off the bench in the 3-2 loss against Tottenham, the Italian striker is now four appearances away from the Hammers automatically having to pay Juventus around £20m.
Zaza remains the top target due to his experience, Serie A knowledge and would find it very easy to adapt to his surroundings, and the fact that Napoli have decided to invest €25m in a new striker when Gabbiadini would be available for that price is no coincidence.
Give it a few weeks, and we can almost guarantee you that a Zaza-Gabbiadini swap story will appear somewhere in the Italian press.
That’s just how the transfer market rumour mill works.
