Reports: Max Allegri still wants Alvaro Morata on the Juve roster next season

There were two very certain things that weren’t going to happen in the weeks and days leading up to Juventus not picking up the buy option to make Alvaro Morata’s two-year loan deal a permanent one earlier this summer:

1. Juve were never going to pay the €35 million price tag.
2. Atlético Madrid was never going to come down from the €35 million price tag.

We’re now a few weeks removed from Morata’s return to Madrid, and the start of preseason training has seen Juventus still very much try and put together an attacking corps that can function a little bit better than what we saw a season ago both before and after Dusan Vlahovic arrived for a winter transfer window record fee. Morata has been training with Atléti as well, but there has been something that has remained true: Juventus — especially its manager — wants the Spanish forward back in bianconero this coming season.

That is according to reports that have come out of the Italian media over the course of the last week, with Max Allegri very much looking at Morata as a player that can round out Juve’s need for another attacking player, both as a backup to Vlahovic and somebody who can compete for time on the left wing as Federico Chiesa works his way back to full health. As La Gazzetta dello Sport on Sunday, Atlético Madrid are asking for at least €20 million for Morata if he were to be sold outright, although Juve could very well try and make it a loan-with-option-to-buy structure that the deal that expired last month was.

Considering that Juve hasn’t really been linked with many forwards of late as the talk of a possible Nicolo Zaniolo deal has cooled, Morata could very much be the only option out there that Juve feel like they can get done when it comes to adding somebody to the attacking group. There could be other names linked with Juventus over the coming weeks before the season starts, but there’s something that Morata has with Allegri that the others don’t — he’s a proven commodity.

And with so many moving parts on this roster and an attack that is still in need of a hole or two to be filled either internally or via the transfer market, you can understand why Allegri would want Juve to bring back a player that he already knows so well.

Morata’s versatility obviously helps in that, especially with Moise Kean still every much a player trying to find some sort of form that has eluded him since coming to Juventus. And also because as Chiesa works his way back to being a full-time player again — which likely won’t happen until after the World Cup is over come the new year — there’s going to be a need to rotate players and mix and match with the starting lineup.

So, while Morata may not be the most appealing name out there that Juve can sign, he definitely seems to be emerging as an option to arrive on the transfer market again. Did we expect that to happen a few weeks ago when his deal at Juve officially expired? I dunno, but as we’ve seen so many times during any given transfer window, things can change and change quickly.