Takehiro Tomiyasu will not be going anywhere this summer with Bologna director Riccardo Bigon ruling out an exit for the West Ham United and Southampton target, speaking to Goal.
Versatile, adaptable footballers are in vogue these days and there are few more useful than this 21-year-old Japan international.
This season alone, Tomiyasu has played at right-back, centre-half and in defensive midfield for Bologna in Serie A.
Though it is his qualities on the flanks which will have caught the eye of two Premier League clubs (Calciomercato).
After all, West Ham and Southampton will both be in the market for a new right-back over the next few weeks and months.
But, as Bologna director Sabatini has made painfully clear, they are barking up the wrong tree if they want to bring Tomiyasu to the London Stadium or St Mary’s.
“We won’t be selling him because the figure paid would not be sufficient to reflect what a great player he is,” Sabatini says.
“Right now nobody is capable of fully evaluating what Tomiyasu is and can become.”
Reading between the lines, it seems that Sabatini is referring to a period of unprecedented financial uncertainty which has turned the transfer market on it’s head.
If Bologna were to sell one of their most impressive performers, a player who is only going to get better at just 21, they would surely command a fee in excess of £20 million.
In this day and age, however, even Premier League clubs are unlikely to pay big for an unproven youngster who is still new to European football.
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