Reported Tottenham Hotspur target Yacine Adli has shades of a young Andrea Pirlo in the way he plays the game, AC Milan legend Marco Simone has told Gazzetta dello Sport, via Tuttomercatoweb.
Should Adli make the switch from Bordeaux to Milan before the transfer window shuts at the end of this month, he will become the second up-and-coming playmaker in the space of 12 months to arrive at the San Siro with the ‘new Pirlo’ tag hanging round his neck.
But while Sandro Tonali was keen to play down such similarities – insisting he’s as much a destroyer as he is a distributor, a student of the Gennaro Gattuso school of hard knocks – Adli won’t be able to distance himself from the comparisons quite so easily.
Like a young Pirlo, the former Paris Saint-Germain starlet is equally effective in a deep-lying role as he is in a more attacking one, setting the tempo and orchestrating the play without a hair out of place.
Tottenham will have to battle Milan for Yacine Adli
“He’s a complete player, box to box. He is a talent with great vision,” says Simone, a former Italy international who won four Scudettos with Milan in the 1990s.
“(Adli) can adapt to any role in midfield and he knows how to control the game. The way he touches the ball and how he moves he reminds me of Pirlo – and he is more incisive than (Juventus star Adrien) Rabiot, with whom he is often compared.”
Earlier this week, FootMercato reported Tottenham were keen on 21-year-old Adli, a player who came close to joining arch rivals Arsenal during Unai Emery’s first few months in the Emirates dugout.
Bordeaux president Gerard Lopez has since admitted Adli could leave the cash-strapped Ligue 1 side. However, Lopez added AC Milan was his most likely destination.
Should this stylish playmaker with a mop of brown hair end up at the San Siro, those Pirlo comparisons will only increase.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
