During the past summer window, Jose Mourinho was looking for a new goalscorer for his Europa League winning side to collaborate with Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial but also, and more importantly, to replace injured Zlatan Ibrahimovic whose future at Manchester United was still uncertain.
At the top of his target list were two players from Serie A who had scored a combined 37 goals in Serie A and provided 19 assists during the 2016/17 season. The Portuguese did all he could in order to secure either or both of them but eventually failed and opted for Romelu Lukaku.
Mourinho wants two strikers Morata and Belotti but Rooney must also be sold .
— MUFCEXCLUSIVENEWS. (@MufcinNewsinfo) 14 June 2017
This weekend, those two players, Torino’s Andrea Belotti and Inter’s Ivan Perisic, face off at the San Siro Stadium in a historic clash between their two northern Italy sides.
Their upcoming match will be a good opportunity for Mourinho to see if his summer attempts to sign them were actually worth it or, instead, it was all much ado about nothing.
Who are they and how did they become so precious for their teams to refuse a job with the Premier League giants?
The first one is Andrea Belotti, Torino’s latest newbie who went from being an anonymous,
Meanwhile, thanks to his heroics at Inter, Croatian Ivan Perisic caught Mourinho’s attention during the summer.
With a past as a Bundesliga player, the 28-year-old landed at Inter in 2015, leaving the fans disappointed in the first season when he only scored seven goals in 34 games and often lost his temper when frustrated.
However, after his mediocre first year he worked hard to improve and earn his fans’ admiration. At the end of the 2016/17 season, he was every Fantasy League’s favourite after providing 11 goals and 11 assists in 36 matches.
His cooperation with Inter’s lead striker Mauro Icardi is something that they clearly have fun doing and has become so amusing and enjoyable to watch that last summer Mourinho wasn’t able to interfere.
Let’