Italian outlet, Calciomercatoweb have claimed that Newcastle are interested in Inter Milan’s beast of a defender, Milan Skriniar.
The Slovakia centre-back, 27, has just six months left on his contract at the Italian giants, and so far a new deal hasn’t been agreed upon between the two parties.
That leaves the door open for Newcastle to come in with an offer for the 6’2″ defender. Of course, Calciomercato has a habit of linking us with any player seemingly looking for a move, so I have the pinches of salt ready on this one.
According to FootballFanCast, Skriniar has been putting in some impressive displays in Serie A this season averaging 1.4 tackles and 2.1 interceptions per game alongside a 92% pass completion rate. He’s got bags of experience playing at the top level of Italian football and in the Champions League which is exactly what Newcastle will be looking for as they continue to march towards European football.
As a right-sided centre-back, imagine him and Botman at the back. We might as well just erect a brick wall on the goal line, it would be just as fair.
If Newcastle bides their time and wait until the summer to pick Skriniar off for free after his contract at Inter expires, that would be an inspired piece of business by the Magpies, or if they’re looking for an immediate boost to the back line, he should be available at a cut price with Inter likely to take any kind of fee in January rather than lose him for nothing in the summer.
Again, though, given the source of this one, I’d not expect any movement on this rumour.