Jean-Philippe Mateta will not be signing for AC Milan after the Italian giants pulled out of a deal just hours before the transfer deadline due to an issue with his medical, according to multiple reports including this one from The Guardian.
The Crystal Palace and France striker, 28, underwent extra medical tests on Monday and the BBC are reporting that Mateta has been struggling with a knee issue.
With the $40 million transfer now off, Mateta could still go elsewhere in the final hours of the window. But he’s now in a race against time to get the deal pushed through, while Crystal Palace, Wolves and Southampton are all impacted.
Why? Well, because their is a chain of strikers lined up to be on the move and Mateta was at the front of that chain. But now all of those dominoes may not fall.
Wolves striker Jorgen Strand Larsen was lined up by Palace to replace Mateta for $65 million and Wolves were then going to pay $13 million to sign Adam Armstrong from Southampton, and Southampton were going to sign Canada’s Cyle Larin on loan.
Will all of those deals now not go through due to Mateta’s move to Milan collapsing? Let’s wait and see but this kind of drama so late on in the transfer window is pretty wild and there could be a chance that Mateta doesn’t leave Palace at all. That would be quite something after the last week where it seemed very likely he would move on and he didn’t feature for Palace at the weekend at Nottingham Forest.
Forest were said to be interested in Mateta, while Juventus have also been linked with a loan move for the towering French striker.
