Billy Gilmour was determined to leave Brighton & Hove Albion for Napoli in the summer window.
That’s according to Napoli sporting director Giovanni Manna, and he revealed this during an interview with Radio CRC. His comments are relayed by CalcioNapoli24.
The Serie A side had to wait until deadline day to take the midfielder away from Brighton.
Manna claims the Naples club had almost agreed a deal with the Seagulls in July. They had to wait for the Premier League side to bring in the 23-year-old’s replacement to secure his services.
Matt O’Riley was Gilmour’s replacement at The Amex and Fabian Hürzeler’s side secured his services from Celtic on August 26th. A day later, the Denmark international suffered an ankle injury in his side’s EFL Cup win over Crawley Town.
O’Riley is set for a spell on the sidelines and his setback had set off alarm bells at Napoli over missing out on Gilmour. Manna has revealed the Scotland international made an effort and this helped his side to get this deal over the line.
“He’s the first midfielder that we have concretely negotiated and defined, we had practically already closed in July. Then there were market dynamics that slowed down the transfer, because Brighton had to find a replacement,” he said.
“We always remained in contact with the agent and the club, but when O’Riley got injured, it seemed like everything fell through.
“There was a stalemate, but I must say that the player really wanted to come to Napoli. I’m not saying that he was stubborn, but he made his will clear to the president and the coach.
“We weren’t sure we could do it, but we managed it thanks to the president who gave the green light. We know that contracts with image rights sometimes slow down the closing of contracts; but we had everything ready and in half a day we managed to do everything. The guys in the office worked very well.”
The former Brighton man came off the bench to make his Napoli debut against Cagliari on September 15th.
