Leeds United’s reported links to Cagliari midfielder Nahitan Nandez are seemingly hitting a dead end with no progress being made whatsoever.
Marquee signings are something every fan wants to see from their club heading into each transfer window, but it’s not always as clear-cut as signing a player for a position and being done with it.
We proved that last summer when the two longest drawn-out sagas of 2020 were two players that didn’t even come close to signing for us. The first being Ben White, who Brighton told us from minute one wasn’t leaving; the second being Rodrigo De Paul, who stoked flames with social media teasing but was never even a possibility.
Valuation from the selling club is a massive stumbling block and at the moment, if you don’t pay up, there’s no haggling to be done and we’re seeing that right now.
You can’t see Leeds news at the moment with seeing the name Nahitan Nandez come up frequently.
The Cagliari midfielder has been brilliant since joining the Serie A outfit and it’s generated interest in his signature, reportedly from Leeds amongst other clubs.
The links to this sort of player make sense to us because he’s an incredibly energetic midfielder that can play in a number of positions and has done so very competently in his career, much akin to our own Stuart Dallas.
However, the issue here is that his valuation is something that, from the outset, should have made this link a non-starter. The Sardinian club are demanding at least £31million for the Uruguay international, and almost every Leeds fan knows we’re not looking to stump up that sort of money at the moment on one player.
It’s got to the point where we have another ‘De Paul’ saga underway. There are clear reports from the likes of Phil Hay claiming the valuation is far too much, but elsewhere we see claims that the deal is done.
Just like De Paul, it might take him signing for someone else for it to finally end the speculation linking him to a move here, which hasn’t really ever looked likely.