· December 18 2024, 10:30
If you don't laugh you'll cry. Italian media are still trying their best to push the narrative that Sandro Tonali wants out of Newcastle United to return to Italy.
Sandro Tonali is reportedly homesick if you believe the foreign press and not his actual agent. Apparently, the Italian is desperate to return to Serie A with AC Milan and Juventus ready to take him off our hands. So generous.
The £55 miillion signing from AC Milan had the perfect opportunity to return home for a while when he was slapped with a 10-month ban for gambling and was revealed to have a gambling addiction.
We're sure, given how early it came into his time at Newcastle, the club would have granted him an extended period of leave to return to Italy and deal with the situation, but instead, Tonali stayed in England, returning home only for the counselling sessions for gambling addiction.
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Sandro Tonali is desperate to return to Italy ... according to press in Italy
Juventus are willing to sell players to raise the money for Sandro Tonali
Tonali kept turning up to training every day throughout the period he was banned and is improving in the Newcastle side with every game since his return.
However, the press in Italy is on a crusade to either try to unsettle Tonali or to simply give Italians false hope of a return of one of their most promising stars.
Today, Il Corriere dello Sport is reporting that Juventus are willing to sell two players to raise funds to acquire Tonali from Newcastle. The irony that one of those players is 'Supergrass' Nicolo Fagioli, the one who grassed up Tonali to the Italian Football Federation is not lost on us.
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Newcastle have set an asking price for Sandro Tonali ... yeah, right!
Kenan Yildiz would be the other player The Old Lady would be willing to part with to raise the money. Bizarrely, the report claims that Newcastle have set a €55 million (£45.4 million) asking price for the Italy international, which is around £10 million less than we paid for him in the first place.
That was as far as I got with this story before I knew there was absolutely zero truth to the claims. If we were to sell Tonali, if all these rumours of him wanting to return home were true, after paying his wages for 10 months, supporting him through the most difficult time in his career, there's no way we'd then sell him for a loss. That's absolutely ludicrous.
There may be truth to the homesickness rumours and the intense interest from Serie A, but for now, we're quite happy to believe what his agent said a couple of weeks ago - Tonali is happy at Newcastle.