‘Will stay’: Boss rules out selling £16m Paratici target to Arsenal or Spurs

Follow us on Google Discover

Weston McKennie ‘will stay at Juventus’ amid links with Premier League trio Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and Newcastle United, the Serie A club’s head coach Massimiliano Allegri tells Football Italia. 

Is the all-action American a symptom or a solution? Can he help fix a disjointed Juventus midfield? Or is he merely part of the problem? A loose bolt in a broken machine?

Two years after joining from Schalke in a £16 million deal, there is still no obvious answer to a question that has sparked plenty of debate in Turin.  

Fortunately for the opinion-splitting USA international, Allegri appears to be a fully paid-up member of the ‘pro McKennie camp’.

Weston McKennie ‘will stay’ at Serie A giants Juventus

“McKennie is a very important Juventus player,” says the former AC Milan boss, who guided the 2017 Champions League finalists to a less-than-convincing fourth place finish during his first season back at the Allianz Stadium.

“He will stay at Juve. I believe McKennie will have a chance to have a great season at Juventus,”

“Unfortunately, he missed the last four months of last season (due to an injury). He’ll be part of the team that will participate in these (pre-season) games.” 

TuttoJuve reported in May that Arsenal, Newcastle and Tottenham were three clubs keeping tabs on McKennie’s situation. Spurs, according to Alisdair Gold, even prioritised the tigerish, Texan-born dynamo over Juventus team-mate Rodrigo Bentancur back in January with Fabio Paratici, the club’s managing director, a big fan of a player who arrived in Italy on his watch during the summer of 2020. 

“McKennie is a very exuberant and very intelligent boy,” Paratici said at the time. “We have high expectations of him. He is a boy who is already at a good level, but has great room for improvement.” 

How much McKennie has ‘improved’ at Juventus is, as always, up for debate. He’s scored some hugely important goals – a brilliant volley against Juventus and a winner against rivals Torino to name just two. But doubts persist about his technical ability or distribution.