Napoli still trying to off-load Emanuele Giaccherini

It’s been a long summer for the Emanuele Giaccherini saga, with multiple potential transfers away from Napoli ruined because of wage demands from the player far beyond what his declining skills are worth. Napoli are still hopeful of being able to move him on, though, with two French teams recently being reported as being interested in the turbulent winger in Olympique Lyon and Toulouse.

Giaccherini’s wage demands scuppered a deal to Sparta Prague in July, and was rumored to have ruined another deal earlier in the summer as well — and those deals falling through have hindered Napoli’s ability to work in the transfer market, including losing out on Alex Berenguer, as his wages are too high for Napoli to add much more to their bill without a guarantee of Champions League football.

Lyon, though, love themselves an aging veteran, and even at a declining 32 years old, Giaccherini still can help make at least some degree of impact in Ligue 1. Whether or not they’ll be able to afford his wages or not is a different story — something tells me they won’t, given that Lyon have been notoriously cheap the last few years — but it’s not 100% unreasonable to see him linked there. Toulouse is an odd fit for him as there’s almost no way they can afford his wages, but stranger things have happened and he could certainly help their efforts to look better in Ligue 1.

Hopefully Napoli can offload him soon. Giaccherini isn’t good enough any more to be of significant use for them any more, and he’s already been mostly replaced by Adam Ounas. They need the flexibility to operate in the transfer market that he’s precenting, so they need to find some club that can take him, as soon as possible.