Report: Juventus to try and sign Lyon’s Tanguy Ndombele next summer

For the better part of the last two years, Juventus’ midfield has been the area of the field that has needed the most improving. Star signings that have come in other areas of the field — you know, the Cristiano Ronaldo or Joao Cancelo types of players — hasn’t necessarily been there in the midfield.

With Juventus pretty much assured of signing Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey, we know that there will be at least one new arrival in the center of the park this summer. But, according to Gianluca Di Marzio, there could be more.

As the Sky Sport Italia transfer reporting oracle stated late Friday, Juventus have identified another name to try and upgrade their midfield this coming summer — Lyon midfielder Tanguy Ndombele, who has just made his debut on the senior international level a couple of months ago. More from Di Marzio:

After reaching an agreement with Aaron Ramsey, Juventus are still looking for ways to bolster their midfield next season and have now zeroed in on Tanguy Ndombele.

In the coming days, the bianconeri will meet with the agent for the Lyon midfielder born in ‘96, who has appeared in 27 matches in all competitions this season, as he’s sporting director Paratici’s priority for the club’s midfield of the future.

Just as a way to educate you all who might not be totally familiar with the 22-year-old Ndombele, I decided to do a little experiment. I typed the phrase “Tanguy Ndombele comp” into Google and hit enter. This is the first result I got:

N’Golo Kante

I don’t know about you guys, but Juventus signing a player in the mold of somebody like Kante — who they were linked to a handful of times before he ended up signing with Chelsea — and adding them to a midfield that already has an ace of a passer in Miralem Pjanic, a budding young star in Rodrigo Bentancur and box-to-box options in Emre Can and Aaron Ramsey sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

Of course, Ndombele won’t come cheap or anything close to it. He’s also been linked with Barcelona and Manchester City in recent days — because of course, right? — in recent days, so you know the general translation as to when any player in the early-20s is associated with a move to those two clubs is basically “Get your wallets out, fool.”

But, if Di Marzio is to be believed on this one and that Ndombele is really emerging as a player that Paratici has got to get this coming summer, then there could be a lot worse directions to go. And seeing as this is going to be Paratici’s first summer transfer window as The Guy at Juve, you gotta imagine the guy wants to do some things.