Three days ago we published an article about AC Milan’s Franck Kessie and Cagliari’s Nicolo Barella who were being touted as possible replacements for Aaron Ramsey and I opined that neither transfer was likely, however, there have been further developments with regards to Kessie and to a lesser extent Barella and I must admit, that I am now far more positive that we may well fill the shoes of the soon to be departing Welshman with one of these two players.
Teamtalk have reported that AC Milan are now prepared to offload the 22-year-old in order to fund the purchase of Tiemoue Bakayoko, who is currently on loan with the Italian giants from Chelsea.
It seems that Bakayoko has impressed Milan enough for them to want to make his loan move a permanent one, however, they need to raise the money to make this happen which in turn means that they are now ready to listen to offers for Kessie.
Milan want £40 Million for the Ivory Coast international and while that is a sizeable amount it is not out of our reach and in fact, if we make next seasons Champions League and sell some of our own fringe players we may have a far larger transfer budget than what we have been lead to believe.
As for Barella, it turns out our scouts watched him score against Finland on Saturday, which tells you that we are indeed keen, even though he is priced at a whopping £50 Million.
We will miss Ramsey for sure and there are going to be a lot of rumours about potential replacements, some will be outlandish and some will be credible and right now, you have to consider that Barella and Kessie are two of the more credible possibilities.