Lazio’s Serie A star Sergej Milinkovic-Savic was a target for Wolverhampton Wanderers this summer but, according to The Athletic, he didn’t want to join the Premier League outfit.
Earlier this week, the respected, Milan-based journalist Mauro Suma raised plenty of eyebrows over in Italy.
Milinkovic-Savic, he said, had been the subject of a staggering £103 million bid from AC Milan during the summer of 2018.
Lazio never thought for a second about accepting a deal which would have made the Serbian powerhouse the most expensive footballer in the history of Italian football.
That alone is a reflection of how highly Milinkovic-Savic is thought of at the Stadio Olimpico.
Three years on, the 6ft 3ins playmaker is valued somewhere in the region of £70 million, his price-tag dropping due to a combination of COVID-19 and the fact that he has maybe not developed as many had expected in the Italian capital.
While still one of Serie A’s finest footballers, there is a feeling that Milinkovic-Savic has been overshadowed by former Liverpool bench-warmer Luis Alberto and the free-scoring Ciro Immobile during the last few seasons.
Nonetheless, it would take something very special to lure Milinkovic-Savic – a man once famously dubbed ‘better than Paul Pogba’ – away from a club looking to force their way into the Champions League picture under Maurizio Sarri.
Did Wolves have no chance of signing Milinkovic-Savic?
“I feel like a leader now. It is my sixth year here and I hope to stay for many more years,” the Spain-born 26-year-old said earlier in the summer when he was being linked with a big-money move to Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.
“I see the young players here and think about when I was in their place, so I try to help them the same way the old guard helped me.”
If Milinkovic-Savic was not interested in joining forces with Mo Salah and co at Anfield, he was never likely to be enamoured by the prospect of putting pen to paper at Wolves, a club who finished 13th in the Premier League last season.
The Athletic claim that Milinkovic-Savic was ‘courted’ by the men from Molineux but made it clear that he had no interest in signing.
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