Make no mistake, Italy’s biggest clubs will be growing a little tired of Tottenham Hotspur. For a long time, sides like Juventus and Inter Milan have usually been able to take their pick of the youngsters in Serie A and push others aside to seal a deal.
Fabio Paratici moving to Spurs saw the Premier League club look more towards the Italian market and they’ve had multiple successes, with the country’s media often grumbling about how those players were snatched away and have succeeded elsewhere.
One of the issues is money, with there simply being more of it in England’s top division, and that’s the problem facing Juventus and Inter Milan with Alfred Gudmundsson.
For weeks there’s been grumbling in the Italian media about Tottenham interest and Genoa’s ability to push the price higher due to that. At first the expected fee was edged to ?35m, which was felt too much for the Serie A giants, and now it’s pushed to ?40m.
TuttoJuve say Tottenham can ‘take advantage’ of that, and the ‘reluctance’ of Juve and Inter to pay such a fee, to ‘overtake’ and clinch the lead in the transfer race.
Make no mistake, Gudmundsson is valued very highly in Italy. The 26-year-old, who has been playing as a second striker for Genoa, has 15 goals and four assists in 33 matches this season.
Another aspect in Tottenham’s favour is a good working relationship with Genoa. They signed Radu Dragusin from the club in J...