The rumours regarding interest from Newcastle United in AC Milan’s centre-back pair of Fikayo Tomori and Malick Thiaw will not go away, and they have popped up again today.
According to this morning’s edition of Corriere della Sera (via Radio Rossonera), Newcastle want to strengthen their defence further after the signing of Lloyd Kelly on a free transfer and – after spending over €70m last summer on Sandro Tonali – they want to do more business with Milan.
Thiaw and Tomori are the two profiles in their sights, but the German and the Englishman are currently considered Milan’s starting central defenders after Simon Kjaer also left at the end of his contract.
Sky reported that Milan have a concrete interest in signing Strahinja Pavlovic from RB Salzburg. There are ongoing contacts with the player’s entourage to try and first reach a verbal agreement over personal terms and then the management will negotiate with the Austrian club.
However, it seems more likely that the Serbia international would be a replacement for Kjaer rather than for Tomori and Thiaw. The idea will be to strengthen a rearguard that struggled last season rather than to potentially weaken it, though as the Tonali saga showed everyone has a price.