Inter Raise Lookman Bid, Take a Stand on Two Fixtures | OneFootball

Inter have sent a bumper offer to Atalanta for Ademola Lookman after the respective higher-ups convened during a League meeting, but it’s not yet enough for the counterparty. The prospective buyers have tendered €42M plus €3M bonuses, Fabrizio Romano reports (via SOSFanta).

The Serie A runner-ups would rather not get to the €50M threshold, but La Dea isn’t budging from it. The player and his camp are pushing to take the offer, but they haven’t resorted to brusque measures for now.

Inter will wait for a formal answer from Atalanta before deciding on the next steps for Lookman. Giuseppe Marotta stated that they didn’t want to drag things out for too long.

In the meantime, the Nerazzurri are close to dodging a bullet on Denzel Dumfries. His €25M release clause expires on Thursday. The club hasn’t looked for offers, as they want to keep him. Instead, the hierarchy is open to selling Benjamin Pavard for a hefty proposal. They paid €31M for him, and he makes €6.5M. He’s worth about €19M on their balance sheets, Calciomercato reports.

Our Take on Inter, Lookman, Dumfries, and Pavard

Usually, the only deadline that matters is the end of the window, but they might be one of the few teams disciplined enough to respect their own ones to avoid fruitless and tiresome sagas. Still, they are only a few million away from an absolute coup. They would have to find a great fallback plan if they pulled out of the race.

They need to part ways with a defender if they want to add one and get younger. The Frenchman is more palatable than Francesco Acerbi and Stefan De Vrij on the market, but he might struggle to fetch satisfactory numbers given his age.