In the last few days, Juventus sporting director Cristiano Giuntoli seemed to categorically play down the growing talks that the club had a strong interest in English Premier League midfielder Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg.
With the January transfer window starting to really hot up now, there had been growing speculation on the rumour mill and in certain quarters of the Italian press that The Old Lady were keen on concluding a deal for the 28 year old Tottenham Hotspur and 73 capped full Denmark international, if agreement could be struck, but Giuntoli has poured cold waters on those rumours and also indicated that the Serie A side are not really pushing ahead to add anyone to their ranks this window.
Whatever the truth may have been here given the plethora of reports that came out about Juve’s apparent interest, a more recent claim in the press was that the White Hart Lane outfit were open to doing a deal for the player, that would simply be a straight loan option for the remainder of the 2023/24 campaign, but that included an obligated buy clause that would be triggered next summer, witch claims being it would be in the region of £26 million.
It may simply be that Juve has changed direction owing to the size of the future obligation, and they simply wanted a potential buy fee to see how the player settled into life at the club and in our top flight game. There were some rumours of this being true initially from their end, with potential talk of a part player swap situation that may have seen one of either Samuel Iling-Junior or Matias Soule going in the opposite direction to London to make the over all agreement a bit more financially savvy.
With the £26 million asking price now in play, Gazzetta dello Sport have now speculated that the Italian side will pull out of all negotiations now (as per Giuntoli’s comments) knowing the fee is ‘too high’ and that any talks would likely be a waste of time given the ‘uphill road’ they would be, and instead the club will chance their hand again in the summer where they will make the educated guess his current employers will be more flexible in the price given his shortening contract situation.
That could be a bit of a gamble though, as although he is not first choice under manager Ange Postecoglou, he continues to be in their match day squads and has started their last two games.
This could be one to watch on deadline day, or indeed next summer as the position of either club could very well change moving forward.
