Leeds still have hope of signing Charles De Ketelaere as AC Milan are ‘trembling’ with their talks to sign the midfielder on hold.
The Yorkshire club have seen two huge players leave this summer in the form of Kalvin Phillips and Raphinha, who joined Manchester City and Barcelona respectively.
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Leeds have already snapped up Darko Gyabi, Marc Roca, Rasmus Kristensen, Tyler Adams, Luis Sinisterra and Brenden Aaronson this summer with more incomings expected.
The Premier League side have been chasing Club Brugge midfielder De Ketelaere but, despite striking an agreement with the Belgian outfit, the player is reticent to move to Elland Road.
De Ketelaere prefers a move to Italian champions AC Milan but that had not put off Leeds with the Elland Road club hoping to be a fall-back option if the Serie A giants failed to stump up Brugge’s asking price.
And that hope remains as Gazzetta Dello Sport (Sport Witness) claim Milan are ‘trembling’ with the talks on hold.
The Rossoneri have offered €30m plus €2m in bonuses, which is short of Leeds’ €37m offer and, crucially, lower than the Belgian club’s demand of €35m.
Milan’s chances are ‘decreasing’ with the next few days ‘obviously decisive’ as this transfer saga won’t continue for ‘more than 3-4 days’.
Leeds boss Jesse Marsch said earlier this week that their chase of De Ketelaere is “not finished” as he revealed the club’s targets before the end of the transfer window.
“I’d say we’re actively pursuing both positions,” said Marsch before Leeds trained in front of hundreds of fans in Fremantle. “The striker one, I think it’s been well documented that De Ketelaere was a goal of ours and it’s not finished yet with him.
“But we’ve also moved on to some other targets, trying to figure out which would be the best fit if in the end, which is what we believe, he will not be available.
“Then left-back, we have a few different candidates and we’re just trying to evaluate exactly where we are with the roster and what exactly we need.”
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