At 6’2″, AS Roma’s Lorenzo Pellegrini fits the type of midfielder that Paris Saint-Germain sporting director, Leonardo, is looking for this summer transfer window.
PSG’s interest in the 23-year-old has been reported already and there’s reason to believe it could be true considering Leonardo’s connection to Italian football and affinity for signing players from Serie A.
However, after reading his name in the transfer rumor mill, Pellegrini tried to shut down the speculation of a potential move to the French capital by publicly saying that he wants to be part of the long-term success at Roma.
Despite Pellegrini supposedly not wanting to leave the Italian capital, PSG is reportedly looking to prepare a bid for him.
What the Numbers Say
Pellegrini has split time as a central and attacking midfielder. This season, the Italian has taken more of an offensive role, helping create scoring chances for Roma.
Appearing in 18 matches as a starter and averaging 84 minutes per game, one of the more eye-popping numbers that jump out is the 3.0 key passes per game per SofaScore. Also, having more influence on the offense has allowed for Pellegrini to generate 11 big chances and eight assists on 65.1 touches per game.
Despite being effective with his passing and generating offense, Pellegrini doesn’t average a high amount of passes per game. Nonetheless, it seems that although he’s only averaging 34.5 per game, they’re efficient.
On the creative side, Pellegrini is close to what Neymar Jr. can bring, but his ability to win duels might be a bit of a weakness. Now, because the 23-year-old is more involved offensively this season, his number of duels won isn’t the same as a player like Tiémoué Bakayoko.
Pellegrini’s total duels won per game sits at 4.4 with a win rate of 47 percent, not exactly a good when a player is losing half their duels, but the creativity that the Italian brings with the ball outweighs the small warts in his game.
13 —Lorenzo Pellegrini completed more through balls than any other player in Serie A this season and he completed six more in the Europa League. This was one of them:pic.twitter.com/bA2lXRQVEi
— UtdArena. (@utdarena) March 17, 2020
The Cost
For PSG to pry Pellegrini away from Roma, they’ll need to spend around €32 million per Transfermarkt and hope that the Italian club misses out on the UEFA Champions League action (currently in fifth place).
Furthermore, with the midfielder not wanting to depart, it could probably take more in the wage scale for Pellegrini to want to make a move to Paris.
The last time Les Parisiens made a deal with Roma, they were able to bring a cornerstone piece to their defense in Marquinhos. If Leonardo can once again do business with them, they can perhaps bring a vital price to the midfield in Pellegrini and pair him with another Italy international, Marco Verratti.
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