Transfer News: Italian Midfielder Garnering Interest From Two Major Clubs; Sassuolo Not Pressured To Sell

Manuel Locatelli is reportedly being pursued by Arsenal and Juventus, but Sassuolo is not looking to sell.

The Italian midfielder has been playing particularly well at the 2020 Euros, which has led to the interest that has been revolving around him in the past weeks.

The 23-year-old’s breakout came in the form of scoring two goals to down Switzerland, 3-0, and reach the last 16.

For the Italy national team, they would go on to have stellar runs all the way to the finals against England, who barely escaped a Denmark upset, on July 11 at 9:00 PM (London time).

In the past weeks, Locatelli’s name has been linked to Juventus as the club is looking to move on from Cristiano Ronaldo and his massive contract.

A couple of days ago, it was reported that Juventus will be upping their bid to €40 million ($47.2 million) for the young midfielder as they will meet with Locatelli’s home club of Sassuolo this week.

Sassuolo CEO Giovanni Carnevali has stated that only Arsenal has sent in a bid for Locatelli thus far and it’s starting to look like this will be a two-club race.

Both Arsenal and Juventus are bidding for Locatelli, but his home club may just be testing the waters to see how much they can get for him.

It has been reported that Carnevali is in no rush to sell their budding superstar despite being in advanced negotiations with a certain foreign club that they have not explicitly named, but can be inferred that it is indeed Arsenal.

Carnevali has also said that they will wait until Locatelli has returned from Euro 2020 to discuss his future as they do respect his input.

“We will talk about Locatelli when Euro 2020 ends, we want to leave him calm until Sunday. We have received important offers for him, talks of which are very well underway,” Carnevali said.

“We met with Juve and we made an appointment next week but it is all to be evaluated.”

In an interview with Sky Sports, Carnevali revealed that there are other members of his squad that are being linked to transfers as well.

“We have received offers for Locatelli but also Domenico Berardi, Giacomo Raspadori and Jeremie Boga have requests,” said the executive.

However, the club is in no rush to sell as they have already made moves during this transfer window that will ensure that they keep their key players through 2021-2022.

This includes the sales of Marlon to Shakhtar Donetsk in the Ukrainian Premier League, Federico di Francesco joining SPAL in Serie B, and Giangiacomo Magnani being sold to Hellas Verona.

“Our policy is not to try to sell many players. We have already sold Marlon, we do not need to sell another one,” said Carnevali.