Reports: West Ham tables first offer for Denis Zakaria

At this point in the summer, we don’t exactly know what Juventus can do in terms of signing players to try and improve next season’s roster. But we know for dang sure that one of the biggest priorities for Juve right now is that selling players — especially those who are not part of next season’s roster — to try and get some money off the books.

The wheels may be in motion for one of those players.

According to multiple reports out of Italy including from Sky Italia’s Gianluca Di Marzio, West Ham has tabled their first offer to try and sign sign out-of-favor Juve midfielder Denis Zakaria. The offer is reported to be for €18 million, with some saying it would be an initial loan with an obligation to buy under certain conditions. Di Marzio says Juventus’ asking price for Zakaria is €25 million, which means the two sides are obviously quite far apart but by no means suddenly not speaking with one another.

The thinking, according to Di Marzio, is that the influx of cash with the sale of the “redundancies in midfield” could be used to try and sign somebody like Sergej Milinković-Savić, who has been linked with a move to Turin again this summer.

Out of the three Juve midfielders returning from loan who are on the market right now, Zakaria is very much the one who looks like who he could sold first. Then you could say it’s Weston McKennie as there seems to be some sort of market at this point. Arthur, meanwhile, could very well end up terminating his contract just so he can go do his tiny circles for free somewhere else rather than Juve trying to spin him off on another loan deal.

But when you consider the fact that Juve could use the Zakaria money to bring in somebody else, a loan deal doesn’t exactly make much sense considering the nominal fee that would come in as a result. If it’s somewhere between €18 million and €20 million, then Juve could conceivably use that cash to go out and actually bring in somebody whether it’s in midfield or defense.

Either way, with West Ham in need of midfield help after Declan Rice headed off to Arsenal and an offer being tabled for Zakaria, there hopefully is a happy resolution for this and Juve can start to truly get its summer mercato going on all fronts.