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No Xherdan Shaqiri. No Wesley Sneijder. Hello, Henrikh Mkhitaryan?
Could Mkhitaryan join Juventus? At the moment it's more than an idea, the Italian club is constantly working on signing him. Today they made some new contacts but the main obstacle is the player's intention of staying in Dortmund. Juventus will have to convince him to leave the Bundesliga before negotiating with Dortmund. Yesterday both Juventus' sporting director Beppe Marotta and Mkhitaryan's agent Mino Raiola confirmed the bianconeri's interest in the trequartista.
(Source: Gianluca Di Marzio)
You see, the quest for the desired trequartista is still going on. Just in case you forgot.
But heres the thing about trying to sign Mkhitaryan: If Juventus weren't able to pony up and pay Sneijder's buyout clause, what makes us think that they're willing to spend what is certainly going to be a huge chunk of change to bring in Mkhitaryan? It's not like Mkhitaryan — who cost Borussia Dortmund €27 million two years ago — is going to cost less than it would have taken to bring Sneijder back to Italy.
That's reason No. 1 as to why this seems like an incredibly difficult transaction to make this month.
You want another one? Let's ask Beppe Marotta what he thinks of a pursuit of Mkhitaryan, shall we?
"Mkhitaryan, like [Porto's] Rolando, is a player who would work well within our project. Yes, he is on our list, but at the moment he is just a hypothesis."
(Source: ESPNFC)
'Hypothesis' sounds right at this point in time. That may change. But this is the kind of move Beppe Marotta has yet to pull off in January. Would Dortmund really want to sell a quality player of Mkhitaryan's caliber when so much of their season rides on the Champions League? I'm not so sure, thus making this more 'hypothesis' than anything else right now.
