Club chief ‘confident’ that Spurs-linked defender will sign a new contract 

Inter Milan CEO Giuseppe Marotta has poured cold water over Tottenham’s hopes of landing Alessandro Bastoni by insisting that he expects the centre-back to commit his future to Inter Milan.

Summer transfer targets might perhaps be the last thing on the Spurs hierarchy’s mind at the moment, with the club currently without a full-time head coach and a director of football. 

However, one would expect strengthening at centre-back to be one of the Lilywhites’ priorities in the summer, irrespective of who replaces Antonio Conte.

InterLive.it reported last month that Bastoni is one of the names at the top of Spurs’ wishlist and that the Premier League club are the ‘greatest danger’ for Inter as they attempt to tie down the player to a new contract.

The report claimed that the Serie A club had offered to raise the 23-year-old’s salary from €4m (£3.5m) to €4.5m (£3.9m) while the defender was demanding €6m (£5.3m).

However, Marotta has now indicated that Inter are very confident that Bastoni will put pen to paper on a new deal.

When asked about the centre-back’s contract, the Nerazzurri CEO said (via Fabrizio Romano): “Yes, we are confident. Optimistic, confident.”

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I suspect that any chance we had of potentially attracting Bastoni to the club disappeared when Antonio Conte departed.

The 23-year-old did not seem particularly keen on leaving Italy anyway and it would have likely taken a coach like Conte, who he trusted, to convince him to do so.