It has recently been widely reported that Newcastle United are stepping up their interest in Atalanta centre-back Giorgio Scalvini.
Newcastle have been tracking the young centre-back for around two years, and while his outings were very limited last season following two long-term injuries, it seems the Magpies are willing to take a risk on signing the 21-year-old.
Atalanta, meanwhile, have other ideas, deeming the eight-times capped Italy international as ‘untouchable’.
It looks as if Newcastle will have a fight on their hands if they want to bring Giorgio Scalvini to Tyneside, with TuttoAtalanta setting the price range that they’d expect Newcastle would have to hit to get to the table.
Newcastle may have to pay up to £42 million to land Giorgio Scalvini
According to the Italian outlet, Atalanta would want between £34 million – £42 million, which is, as the outlet says, well above his market value.
While Newcastle haven’t made an actual bid, their initial advances have been rebuffed, and this pricing is thought to be Atalanta’s ‘forceful response’ to the Magpies’ approach.
It’s still early days on this one, and it’s still expected that Marc Guehi would be the preferable move for Newcastle United, but they are putting in the work on backup plans should Liverpool gazump them in the race for Guehi.
Overpaying for Giorgi Scalvini could still save Newcastle money
The valuation that Atalanta has put on Scalvini is still below what we’d expect to pay for Guehi, so while we could end up overpaying for Scalvini, we’d still be saving money overall.
However, there are huge question marks over Scalvini, which aren’t there with Guehi – namely, his ability to play in the Premier League, and we can’t ignore the ACL tear and shoulder injury that kept him out of most of last season.
It’s clear that whichever way Newcastle leans, a deal isn’t going to be cheap or easy. The Magpies need to be ready to negotiate and not walk away at the first hurdle, as was suggested could happen in the pursuit of Anthony Elanga. At the same time, though, we don’t want to be chasing one player all summer like we did last year.
