Undeterred by the fact no offers have been made for Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, the Italian press continue to try and guess where the Serbian midfielder could end up.
The saga wasn’t helped by Claudio Lotito, Lazio’s owner, who revealed on Tuesday evening he’d already rejected €110m for the 23-year-old last August 29th.
Unsurprisingly, this has forced at least one (Corriere dello Sport in this case) outlet to jump to conclusions as to who came forward with that amount.
Yes, you may have already guessed: they think it’s Manchester United.
This ‘information’ is rather well hidden in their article, and they don’t make a big deal out of it, but they certainly slip it in there.
They write: “One hundred and ten million isn’t enough for Milinkovic, United’s offer was returned to sender”.
Was it? Because Lotito didn’t name a club and this just seems like pure speculation from Corriere’s part, as they’d most likely plaster it all over their front page if it wasn’t just a throwaway guess.
If that offer did arrive, whether it came from Old Trafford or somewhere else, it’s easy to see why Lazio turned it down, as it was two days before the end of the summer window and finding an adequate replacement will have been tricky.
Beyond that, all we can do is take Claudio Lotito’s word for it; a man who will be doing everything to drive his star’s price up over the summer.
Claiming he’s already turned down €110m certainly sounds good and makes Lazio’s position seem far stronger than it probably is, that’s for sure.
