Marco Palestra’s future in football remains unclear, with the right wing-back having ‘not opened doors’ to a Newcastle move this summer.
Fabrizio Romano reports on X (formerly Twitter) that a proposed switch to the north east of England is not currently on the cards.
The 21-year-old has been linked with Liverpool and Manchester City in recent weeks. However, Inter Milan appear to have identified the Italian as a priority target to replace the outgoing Denzel Dumfries.
Atalanta have been pretty clear on what they want for Palestra, with Football Italia reporting a fee in excess of €50m [£43.1m] should be enough to see the Serie A side satisfied this summer.
Inter, according to Romano, are attempting to try their luck with a €45m package.
🚨 Marco Palestra to Newcastle not expected to happen despite interest and availability to pay what Atalanta requested.
The player has not opened doors to the move while Inter remain in talks for €45m package, still not enough for Atalanta.
🎥🇮🇹 https://t.co/Lu5AJHlkUM pic.twitter.com/IXkEcixZrB
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) June 8, 2026
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While Liverpool have been named alongside the potential suitors for the wingback, it remains to be seen whether or not Andoni Iraola’s men will officially throw their hat into the ring.
For the same reason why Liverpool didn’t try to bite Inter Milan’s hand off for Dumfries at £17.2m, we just can’t see Palestra entering our recruitment team’s thinking.
For starters, we’ve already got a pretty competent right wing-back in Jeremie Frimpong, and it’s already inspired a certain amount of confusion within the club in terms of how to best utilise the Dutchman.
We don’t tend to play with wingbacks (even if our fullbacks are generally given licence to roam up the flanks). So are we trying to force a square peg into a round hole at right-back? Is the former Leverkusen star considered an auxiliary right winger? Or just simply a jack-of-all-trades, horses-for-courses kind of player?
Either way, it’s not ideal when your first-choice right-back, Conor Bradley, is out with a long-term injury, and you need a reliable option.
Marco Palestra doesn’t necessarily fix that, given he’s also very much considered a wing-back. Now, the Italian has been used as a right-back, but it seems that this shouldn’t be considered his natural position.
Palestra’s qualities, on an opening look, appear heavily weighted towards his offensive contributions, and the numbers do back this up.
* Marco Palestra’s stats on loan with Cagliari in 2025/26 in Serie A (Fotmob)
A player who likes to pump forward and fire crosses into the box. The footballer’s low successful crosses percentage also indicates that he’s rarely looking for the easy ball. So his natural inclination is to create rather than stat pad for pass completion.
But that’s not to suggest the defender’s totally devoid of defensive instincts.
In his duel numbers, he stands up extremely well compared to other “right midfielders” in Serie A.
So, Palestra’s not particularly easy to get past, and yet his dribbled past numbers hold up remarkably well for a player who, presumably, isn’t always part of the last line of defence.
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