Leeds United have not made an approach for £30 million Uruguay international Nahitan Nandez, Cagliari’s sporting director Stefano Capozucca told L’Unione Sarda, via FC Inter News.
Ever since Marcelo Bielsa shuffled through the door at Elland Road three years ago, the Yorkshire giants have been linked with a midfielder who burst onto the scene at River Plate before taking his game to a whole-new level in Italy.
Cagliari president Tommaso Giulini even admitted that Leeds had come calling for Nandez towards the end of the 2020 summer transfer window, although the deal never looked like getting off the ground with so little time for the Sardinians to find a replacement.
Nine months on, the ‘Nandez to Leeds’ rumours have resurfaced with a vengeance.
Will Nahitan Nandez finally join Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds?
But, as far as Capozucca is concerned, there is little more to this than paper-talk. Sometimes there is smoke without fire, it seems.
“The players are all important, some are fundamental. (Nandez) is one of those,” said Cagliari’s sporting director of a man who has also been linked with West Ham.
“I’d be sorry to deprive myself of him but, at the same time, he deserves a top club.
“I deny a proposal from Leeds. Inter did a survey, there are some foreign clubs interested, but nothing concrete.”
There is a reason why Bielsa appears to be such a fan of the 25-year-old former Boca Juniors dynamo.
Nandez is not just a player blessed with supreme technical gifts, he is also hugely adaptable and boasts the kind of boundless energy reserves that would make Gianni Alioski look like a flagging Tanguy Ndombele.
Leeds may still come calling for Nandez again over the next few weeks or months.
For now… well, don’t believe everything you read.
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