Giovanni Carnevali, the director pulling the strings at Juventus, has delivered a cold dose of reality to the rumour mill. The message from Turin is b...
Giovanni Carnevali, the director pulling the strings at Juventus, has delivered a cold dose of reality to the rumour mill. The message from Turin is brutally simple: Paris Saint Germain's valuation for Randal Kolo Muani is outlandish, and Davide Frattesi isn't coming anywhere near the Allianz Stadium. It's a classic case of a director drawing a line in the sand and daring the market to cross it.The French striker's name has been bounced around the corridors of power for weeks, a player of undeniable pace and physicality who could add a different dimension to Thiago Motta's forward line. But Carnevali's warning is clear. When a club like PSG slaps a premium on a player who has not quite set the world alight, the arithmetic stops making sense. Juventus are not in the business of subsidising other clubs' poor squad planning. Why pay top dollar for a player who might not even be first choice if Vlahovic finds his shooting boots again It's a question that echoes the kind of fiscal prudence we haven't seen from the Old Lady since the days of Beppe Marotta. The price, as they say, has to be right, and right now it is dead wrong.What truly raises eyebrows, however, is the dismissal of the Frattesi chatter. The Sassuolo kid was supposed to be the next box to box heartbeat of the Italian midfield, a player who arrives late in the box like a man possessed. But Carnevali has effectively parked the bus on that idea. It suggests that Juventus are looking at a different profile for the engine room, or perhaps the current midfield is deemed more settled than the chattering classes believe. It reeks of a director who is bored of being fed transfer narratives by agents. Do not need him. It's that blunt. It's the kind of statement that shuts down a podcast segment and forces the football world to go back to the drawing board.From the stands, this is encouraging. It suggests a coherent strategy, a refusal to be held to ransom in a market that has lost its goddamn head. Juventus are not a charity. They are a club rebuilding, and that requires hard choices and harder negotiation. If PSG want to move Kolo Muani, they know where to find Giovanni. But he will not be bullied into a panic buy. And as for Frattesi, well, it seems the curtains have been drawn before the party even started. The summer window is still a long, hot slog, but Carnevali has just thrown his first real punch.
