A rather similar tale to the one involving Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Theo Hernandez emerged yesterday after comments from Antonio Conte and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, a report has highlighted.
As Radio Rossonera writes, both clubs obviously want to keep their best players but it is sometimes not as easy as that. With Theo, for example, Milan are trying to renew his current deal which expires in 2026 but Bayern Munich and Real Madrid are believed to be after him.
Recently Ibrahimovic gave his first press conference since returning to Milan as a Senior Advisor six months ago, and it was packed full of bold declarations, interesting indications and of course a few laughs which we broke down in detail.
One of the things that stood out when answering a couple of questions about the squad building was the certainty with which he said the key names will remain, before turning to the ambitions when it comes to the summer mercato.
The Swede said: “Maignan, Theo and Leao remain. They are among the strongest players in their roles, they have a contract with us and they are happy.”
However, Theo Hernandez responded in a press conference with France: “We’ll see later whether I stay or not, at the moment I’m only focused on the European Championship.”
This Ibrahimovic and Theo back-and-forth was then repeated by between Conte and Kvaratskhelia with a figure from the management making a declaration with certainty that the player then undermined.
Conte in his first press said: “Kvara remains, there are no doubts, I was categorical. No, because I feel some doubts. I repeat, you must not have any.”
Kvaratskhelia then told Rai Sport: “I don’t know yet. I respect Conte because he is one of the best coaches in the world, I respect Napoli and I love Napoli but I want to take some more time to decide, I will do it after the European Championships.”
I’d rather hold on to him than let him go for less than 15m euros. Make a useful cover at RB
RB? Who are you talking about?