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Fiorentina have officially wrapped up their first acquisition of 2020 with a deal for Patrick Cutrone of Wolverhampton Wanderers after the player passed a medical this morning. According to Gianluca di Marzio, the 22-year-old striker will join on an 18-month loan with an obligatory purchase in June 2021. The initial loan fee is €3 million, with another €15 million due next year; that will exactly match the €18 million Wolves paid for him this summer.
Widely expected to immediately slot into the first XI in relief of the badly misfiring (but still exciting) Dušan Vlahović, Cutrone should benefit from his relationship with Federico Chiesa—with whom he’s played at various youth levels for Italy—and will relish the chance to round off quick breaks in Giuseppe Iachini’s counterattacking scheme.
Raised in the AC Milan academy, the Como-born hitman broke into the Rossoneri lineup in 2017, scoring 19 times and assisting 5 more in 48 appearances (a goal/assist every 113 minutes) as a teenager. He was less impressive at last year’s dysfunctional Milan, although he was often pushed out to the wing. Were Elliott Management not trying to balance the club’s laughably unbalanced books, he’d have never been sold.
While Cutrone’s brief spell in the Premier League has been widely termed a failure due to his inability to win a starting spot for Nuno Espírito Santo’s men, it’s worth pointing out that he scored/assisted once every 123 minutes this season, which isn’t a bad return at all and indicates that it wasn’t the forward’s finishing that frustrated the West Midlands club.
Noted for his ice-cold finishing, instincts inside the area, aerial ability, and work-rate, Cutrone needs to work on his technique and his linkup play. While he’s not likely to single-handedly propel this poorly constructed roster to the top of the table by himself, he’s a talented young player and should arrive in Florence with a chip on his shoulder and the talent to make Milan and Wolves regret giving up on him. We’re thrilled he’s here.