Less than 24 hours after agreeing Conor Gallagher’s sale to Tottenham Hotspur, Atlético de Madrid sporting director Mateu Alemany is about to cross off another action item on his January to-do list by selling Giacomo Raspadori to Atalanta for around €23 million.
A week ago, Raspadori was leaning toward staying at Atlético, as he didn’t want to leave Spain so soon after he arrived from Napoli in a €22 million transfer last August. AS Roma made a weeks-long offensive to convince Raspadori to join them on an initial loan with an option to buy, but Bergamo-based Atalanta launched an overnight bid for the Italy international and appear to have won the race for his signature — in a permanent deal that will see Atlético make their money back.
Raspadori has been left out of the Atleti squad to face Deportivo La Coruña in the Copa del Rey on Tuesday night, and his departure will seal the first team’s fourth outgoing transfer of this January market. He is poised to sign a five-year contract worth €4 million per year at Atalanta.
Despite Raspadori’s initial reluctance to leave and his reported willingness to fight for his place, the 25-year-old has been convinced to return to Serie A after he was left on the bench during Thursday’s Supercopa de España semifinal loss to Real Madrid. Finding playing time here was always going to be an issue for Jack, who was competing for a place with fellow summer arrivals Thiago Almada and Álex Baena. Additionally, holdovers Julián Alvarez, Antoine Griezmann and Alexander Sørloth were usually picked ahead of Raspadori, who made just one start in LaLiga and played a mere 432 minutes across four competitions, over which he contributed to four goals (2 scored/2 assisted).
I don’t have much more to add relative to what I’ve written about Raspadori in recent weeks. He’s a talented player, a quality two-footed attacker with the versatility that Diego Simeone usually craves. But Atlético signed him out of desperation for another attacking reinforcement, instead of conducting a thorough evaluation of their options and going to the market with a concrete plan. Simeone’s preference always was for a strong dribbler to play on the left wing. Instead, Raspadori and Nico Gonzalez (who isn’t “the dribbler” either) arrived, and the former is leaving already as a consequence.
Cadena SER’s Pedro Fullana reports that “work is underway” to sign a new midfielder to replace Gallagher, as well as “an attacker who can play across the entire forward line” to replace Raspadori. We’ll see how that goes.
