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While there were probably some cursing of buyback clauses after the news of Álvaro Morata having his buyback clause activated by Real Madrid broke, there was main question to come out of the striker's move back to Spain: Who the heck is going to replace him?
The fact that Morata is going back to Real Madrid didn't surprise much of anybody based on the fact that it's been pretty much assumed for weeks. But now the chase to find Morata's replacement in the Juventus strikeforce begins. And Sky Italia transfer reporter Gianluca DI Marzio has outlined a list of potential replacements that certainly contains names that have been linked to Juventus either recently or in the not-so-distant past.
- Alexis Sánchez
- Edinson Cavani
- Romelu Lukaku
- Mario Goetze
- Keita Baldé Diao
- Arkadiusz Milik
- Michy Batshuayi
Long list is long. But, to try and keep things somewhat brief, let's just go to the Sanchez bit for a second because that's why we're here. Sez GDM:
The top target is Alexis Sanchez, a player they pursued while he was at Barcelona before Arsenal acquired him. Juventus never stopped monitoring him.
I don't have one single problem with Sánchez being Juventus' No. 1 transfer target to replace Morata now that Miralem Pjanic is signed, sealed and delivered. We said that a central midfielder was a top priority because of Claudio Marchisio's long-term injury. And now that a striker in Morata that certainly proved to be quite a valuable player over the last two seasons is no longer a component in the club's future, now we know what is needed.
Sánchez will obviously be one of the biggest transfer fees on that list, and who knows how much that will impact any kind of pursuit by the Juventus front office. They obviously have an influx of cash coming their way with Morata heading back to Real Madrid, and we're all awaiting their choice of how to spend it quite eagerly.