Inter Milan pulled the plug on a three-way swap deal that would have seen Nelson Semedo join Manchester City before his £29 million move to Wolverhampton Wanderers, as reported by Calciomercato.
With Joao Cancelo blossoming into one of the Premier League’s finest full-backs in 2020/21, it is safe to assume Pep Guardiola will be glad that nothing came of this.
Because, before breathing life into his City career with a series of stellar performances, the play-making Portugal international was being lined up for a return to former club Inter Milan.
Nerazzuri striker Lautaro Martinez was then expected to swap the San Siro for Barcelona, with Semedo then leaving Catalonia for the Etihad.
But, according to Calciomercato, Inter backed out of the deal when signing Achraf Hakimi from Real Madrid instead, the Moroccan’s arrival negating the need for Cancelo to re-join a club he represented during a loan spell in Milan during the 2017/18 season.
With that, the deal was off.
Semedo did end up in England of course, joining Wolves for £29 million as a replacement for Matt Doherty.
Although while Cancelo has been a revelation for the Premier League’s runaway league leaders, fellow Iberian Semedo has not exactly convinced during his first few months at Molineux.
Defensively, the former Barcelona flyer looks like an accident waiting to happen at times with Nicolas Pepe ‘doing an Alphonso Davies’ during the recent clash with Arsenal, leaving Semedo choking on his dust before firing home the opener.
Stopping goals is not exactly his strong suit. So it is no surprise, really, that Semedo has looked far more at home in a 3-5-2 than he has in Nuno’s new-look four-man backline.
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