Marotta satisfied with summer transfer market

Juventus’ director Beppe Marotta spoke to JTV ahead of the Serie A resuming this coming weekend. He started off by commenting on the just-concluded summer transfer window -

“We are satisfied with the market and I wish to thank all those who worked to achieve these results.

“It is only normal that objectives are not all achieved, otherwise we’d have perfection. Not everything went as we hoped, but we are still very satisfied, as we did get many of the targets we had set.

“The transfer market over two windows in the summer and January is the synthesis of work that happens throughout the year monitoring players and situations.

“That means we are already working for the future to find promising young players and interesting opportunities.”

Even though deadline day was just last week, fans are already asking who the club will be targeting in January -

“I hope we don’t buy anyone in January, as that will mean the current squad did brilliantly, but the aim of Juventus is to improve always. The January window is complementary to the current squad, so it’s a bit early to say, but we are keeping an eye on various situations.”

On the subject of Paul Pogba leaving, and the arrival of Gonzalo Higuain -

“We always said we never wanted to sell Pogba, as he was an important figure for the club, the Coach and the fans. He wanted a change of scenery and to experience a different situation, so faced with that we had to enter into negotiations and try to make him happy.

“We had already targeted Higuain and he was the main image we had in our head, but it was a coincidence that this happened at the same time that Pogba asked to leave.”

On super-agent Mino Raiola saying that the first €240m (£200m) player transfer being close -

“In recent years the figures have climbed rapidly, even to an illogical degree. Mind you, revenues have increased, individual clubs have big backers and this money is ploughed into the transfer market as well as the wages.

“In England clubs have far more available money than the other Leagues, so that skews the market.”

On the subject of right back Stefan Lichtsteiner, who was dropped from the Juve Champions League squad -

“We are very grateful to Lichtsteiner for all he has done, but the thing about a football team is there's competition for places. All players should be happy when champions arrive, as it strengthens the team overall and increases chances of success.

“He cannot take part in the early phase of the tournament, but could potentially come back in later. His contract is about to expire, but we do have an option to extend it. This is not a disciplinary move."