Oops, I went kinda crazy at the winger store

Welcome back to the final week of the transfer window, and the final week of our first summer here at The Transfer Flow. I wanted to say a HUGE thank you to Kim for covering all of the writing here over the past couple of weeks as I took a much-needed post-StatsBomb sale holiday.

As has always been the case, going forward, we will be free to read on TTF, but that also means the business model includes ads and sponsorships. Today is our first official ad from the BeeHiiv network from 1440 Media, and assuming you like the content here at TTF, it will be hugely helpful if you regularly show attention to our sponsors going forward.

See you down in the Rumours section!

—TK

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Juventus have primarily used a back 3 or 4-4-2 diamond with no true wingers for about 12 years now. Max Allegri and Maurizio Sarri mixed things up a little bit, but new manager Thiago Motta has still inherited a team that does not have the wide players he wants to run his 4-2-3-1 system.

No one is going to accuse Juventus of not backing their manager this summer. Over the weekend, his bosses closed deals for two new left-footed right wingers: Nico Gonzáles and Francisco Conceição.

I like the profiles that Juve have gone for here. They’re players who can fit into the same system, but who offer something slightly different and aren’t clones of each other. Gonzáles is a great shooter in every way — good volume, good shot selection, and plus finisher. Conceição isn’t as good of a shooter, but he’s an extremely talented dribbler and passer.

Something Juve’s coaches are going to need to work with Conceição on is his shot selection. He clearly has the instincts and dribbling ability to get into decent locations, but he’s way too willing to have a pop from a poor angle.

It’s also a smart bit of team building to go for one winger who’s prime age and proven in Serie A, and another who’s quite a bit higher risk/higher potential reward.

The financials, though, are mildly alarming, and suggest that Juventus are tiptoeing towards being a Barcelona or Chelsea-style operation. Both have sizeable loan fees — €8m for Gonzáles and €7m + €3m in potential add-ons for Conceição. Juve has an obligation to buy Gonzáles for an additional €33m, while Conceição has a buy option of €30m.

That they’ve kicked the can down the road on both of them makes me wonder if they can responsibly afford their business. That’s before they spend somewhere in the neighborhood of €45m on Teun Koopmeiners, or add a right-footed winger. Juventus also has another €28m in buy obligations next summer for loan-to-buy acquisitions Pierre Kalulu and Michele Di Gregorio.

The Athletic reports that Juventus are still very interested in Jadon Sancho as their aforementioned right-footed winger. They’d need to pay him at least as much as the €7m they don’t want to pay Federico Chiesa, who’s likely on his way to Barcelona.

I’m always very skeptical of teams that give their current manager everything they want at the expense of future flexibility in the market. Take, for instance, Everton and Ronald Koeman.

I think that Gonzáles, Conceição, Koopmeiners and Sancho are all good players who can make a big contribution towards Juventus winning Serie A, and I believe that Conceição in particular is a really good investment who Juve will either lose small or win big on. But if they buy him, that’s around €100m they’ll be spending next summer on players who aren’t even new signings. Eventually, the debt comes due.

—KM

News and rumours

• Viktor Gyökeres scored a hat trick for Sporting this weekend, and it’s a great illustration of why a potential big club transfer for him is so hard to analyse. Please enjoy the 3rd goal, which features some of the worst center back play I’ve ever seen.

• Napoli are close to signing Romelu Lukaku for €30m + a potential €15m in incentives. They’re giving him a 3-year contract worth €6-8m a year, depending on incentives/who's reporting you believe. They’re also about to drop €30m on Scott McTominay. Time to bust out the classic tweet, just replace NHL with Serie A:

• I’m still laughing about Largie Ramazani being 1.67m tall.

• Liverpool are still in the process of moving Joe Gomez after selling Sepp VDB to Brentford, but the rumour mill has decided they are the very hot team for these final two weeks of the window, and may move for Leverkusen’s centreback Piero Hincapie. We’re not sure how likely that is, given Leverkusen are competing on All the Fronts this season, but it’s definitely news.

• Matt Baba O’Riley looks like a lock to Brighton at this point. Early in the summer, I investigated his potential Atletico Madrid rumour and decided that O’Riley felt more nailed on with a PL move in the range of £25-30M. Which is almost exactly what happened. Ladies and gentlefolk, we are [AHEM] used to be professionals at this stuff… please do not try this at home.

• The O’Riley deal apparently creates space at Celtic for them to move for Augsburg’s Arne Engels. We’ll tuck into him some more later in the week if this deal looks likely to complete.

• The constant drum of the Armando Broja saga has been silenced with news that his medical at Ipswich revealed a potential achilles injury.

• The following two pieces of info are linked, but also prefaced with a “absolutely no one has any real idea of what’s going on right now, probably including the potential parties involved.”
  
  1. Chelsea may or may not miss out on Victor Osimhen, as potential interest from the Saudi League is now hot and heavy over the Napoli player. A player whose current club have been insistent on flogging all summer. But also a player who has to consent to any move and doesn’t seem super excited to play in the SPL, regardless of the money involved.
  
  2. Assuming Chelsea do or do not miss out on Osimhen, then they may or may not choose to/be forced to “swoop” in for Everton’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Whose team has also been trying to flog him to anyone else all summer. Said swooping would need to be very gentle though, because everyone has learned over the past few years that DCL is unfortunately easily broken.

• One player who has (also?) chosen not to take the large sacks of cash available in the desert is Paulo Dybala, who put out a statement over the weekend explaining his decision to turn down an eye-watering three-year deal worth €75M to stay at Roma.

• And finally, also in Roma(n) news… West Ham are investigating a loan for Tammy Abraham that could become an obligation to buy, should “certain conditions be met.” Despite the fact that he’s never going to be an elite finisher, we are intrigued both by the potential move and what the certain conditions could be. Abraham had a great first season at Roma before injuries really hampered his performances, so West Ham might want some caution around those with a try-before-you-buy approach.

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