Charles De Ketelaere and Paolo Maldini want to speed things up and beat the Premier League competition, Andrea Belotti can really become a Prince and Matthijs De Ligt desires to be a Bavarian. Here are some of the main stories over the last few days of the transfer market from TribalFootball's transfer expert Rudy Galetti.

De Ketelaere, Maldini challenges Premier League clubs

The object of AC Milan's desire is Charles De Ketelaere. Not for nothing, the Italian champions have already reached an agreement with the young Belgian talent: a 5-year contract, at 2.5 million euros per season that would link him to the Rossoneri until 2027. The conditional, however, is a must: Club Brugge – his current club – in fact, ask €40 million to let him go, while Maldini and Ricky Massara don't want to exceed 30 million.

To complicate the situation, there are also several Premier League teams that could blow up the negotiation. First, there is Leeds, already in contact with the Belgian club for some time: from the West Yorkshire an offer of 35 million euros (30 + 5 bonuses) was already made. Then there are also Leicester and Arsenal, other teams interested in CDK, but to date they have only asked for information, nothing more.

Returning to the matter in hand, the Belgian attacking midfielder, he certainly wants to play the Champions League also in the 2022/23 season and the only team that will take part in the competition is the Milanese.

For this reason, Charles is putting pressure on his club to say yes to AC Milan. But the gap of 10 million between request and offer remains: what is the possible solution? Paolo Maldini could have an ace in the hole: come closer to Leeds' offer, with a lower fixed component and a higher bonus package (up to €7M). The Rossoneri aim to close already this week, so as not to risk having the Belgian stolen as well.

Belotti, the Principality (and the Champions League) are awaiting you

Now, there is only one certainty in Andrea Belotti's future: after 7 years in the Granada shirt, he will no longer be a Torino player. Gallo decided not to accept the renewal proposal from President Cairo who had "forcibly" detained him in Piedmont asking for 100 million euros for his sale, which no club in Europe has ever wanted to pay.

An unjustified figure for that player. In the past, we had already partially told about his future: in recent months, with the almost obvious farewell to Turin, he's been linked to several clubs, in Italy - AC Milan and Atalanta - in Spain, Sevilla above all, in England, with West Ham very much interested. Also in Turkey, where Fenerbahce asked for information, but abandoned any possibility of buying him due to high salary demands, and finally in Saudi Arabia, where Al Ahli and Al Hilal tried - on the contrary - to convince him with lots of millions.

Many teams approached Belotti, but none of these seem to have hit the target. Except one: AS Monaco. The Principality club, which will play the Champions League playoff in August, have offered the Italian forward a three-year contract with a salary of 3,5 million per season that seems to please Gallo. Even if, regardless of the proposal, the dream of playing the Champions League for the first time in his career, for Andrea, is priceless and is worth more than anything else.

De Ligt, Bayern Munich are ready to take him

Just over 10 days ago Juventus CEO Arrivabene spoke clearly about Matthijs de Ligt, saying: "It's impossible to keep players when they want to leave the club - but all the three parties in the negotiations have to be satisfied".

Juventus, to be satisfied, would like to collect the approximately 120 million euros of the release clause. Difficult goal, indeed, impossible. That's why the Bianconeri would be willing to accept 90 million euros to let the Dutch defender go. Who could give this figure for De Ligt? Chelsea, which until a few days ago were pushing hard for the Juventus centre-back, are now concentrating to close (at about 50 million, much less than those requested by Juve) another high-quality defender like Nathan Ake from Manchester City, a player Thomas Tuchel dotes on.

Bayern Munich are getting serious now: the German club – after the meeting on Monday – might be ready to make a new offer for De Ligt close to €90M (bonus included). A figure that Juventus, all things considered, could accept: the feeling is that they will go towards the white smoke in a short time. With all the three parties (almost) satisfied. And with Juventus which, at that point, will have to quickly find a replacement: but this is a discussion for another day.

Lisandro Martinez-Manchester United: just a matter of time

Mission (almost) accomplished for Erik ten Hag.

The former Ajax manager, after requesting him in the wish list, has shown a great commitment in the last few weeks, personally engaging in convincing Lisandro Martinez to join the Manchester United project. And at the moment it seems to have succeeded: in fact between the Red Devils and the Dutch club there's only the final paperwork missing to complete the deal. The last few days have been crucial in the negotiations: with Arsenal lurking, Manchester put their foot down on the accelerator to avoid surprises, making an offer of around €45/50M that the Dutch club accepted.

Curiously, the meeting that took place between the English club and Ajax had the main objective of discussing another player, Antony, with whom, however, the times are slightly lengthening. After the official announcement of Tyrell Malacia and the imminent arrival of Christian Eriksen, now the purchase of the Argentine center-back is just a matter of time. Ten Hag's revolution has begun: the coach had accepted the Man United bench only after having been certain that he could move freely on the market. And so it is happening: the ten Hag era is only at the beginning stage, we will see some good.

Cucurella, the ideal left-back for Guardiola

After Raheem Sterling's move to Chelsea, Manchester City are now focused on finalizing the deal for Marc Cucurella. The talks with Brighton started about a month ago and the feeling was immediately positive. As mentioned, the Sterling issue has diverted attention somewhat from the Brighton negotiation, and Chelsea's current interest in Akè is stealing some time from the left-back issue.

But Pep Guardiola is in a hurry for the speeches with Brighton and Hove club to materialize soon: also because it takes time to fit into the Spanish coach's plans and the start of the season is now upon us. Without forgetting that the future of Oleksandr Zinchenko is uncertain and the arrival of the 23-year-old Spaniard winger at the Etihad Stadium is essential to empower an important area of the pitch for the manager's schemes.

Brighton know that the Citizens want to quickly close the deal and don't lower their demands, also thanks to the 4-year that still remains in the contract of Cucurella. We said it, the feelings are positive, but certainly his possible signature won't come cheap. Considering that City have exceeded one billion and 100 million euros spent on buying players since Pep Guardiola took the lead, we do believe that money to buy Cucurella, of course, won't be a problem.