Roma Yearning for Yacine Brahimi?

Another day, another attacking midfielder and another transfer rumor. After spending yesterday focusing on the Ajax duo of Justin Kluivert and Hakim Ziyech, not to mention several dozen others since the season ended, the Roma rumor mill has landed on a new target, Porto’s 28-year-old attacking midfielder Yacine Brahimi, who, according to Gianluca Di Marzio, is now on Monchi’s list of transfer targets.

See? Told ya.

Following that link and you’ll see that Porto value Brahimi, who had 11 goals and 8 assists in all competitions this season, at a cool €30 million. Brahimi, who hails from Algeria, has been with Porto since the start of the 2014-2015 season, making the switch from Granada the prior year. Brahimi is predominantly a left-side attacking midfielder, one who contributes to roughly 3.4 shots per match, though his own actual attempts and shot assists. So he’s not quite on Ziyech’s level, but he’s pretty balanced nonetheless.

Is that alone worth €30 million? Porto are usually pretty tough to deal with, but if you believe the rumors that they’re interested in Bruno Peres to the tune of €9 million, there may be room to make a deal here.

My guess is this is simply Monchi keeping his options open, if indeed the two sides have actually spoken, but I can say with relative certainty, given all my years covering transfer rumors, that Yacine Brahimi will not be a Roma player come August.