Fiorentina director Joe Barone reveals Brentford made ‘another offer’ today, but Nico Gonzalez is off the market, while they are ‘waiting’ to receive proposals for Sofyan Amrabat and Luka Jovic.
They are in action this evening in the first leg of the Conference League play-off against Rapid Vienna.
It kicks off at the Allianz Stadion at 18.00 UK time (17.00 GMT) and the second leg will be at the Stadio Artemio Franchi next Thursday evening.
“We thank Brentford, another offer came in today, but Nico Gonzalez is a Fiorentina player. We are building an important squad and Nico is a player who makes the difference, he is happy here, he is not for sale and will not be for sale,” Barone told Sky Sport Italia.
The Viola left Amrabat and Jovic out of the UEFA Conference League list completely amid reports of an exit, as the midfielder is wanted by Manchester United and Atletico Madrid, while the forward has been linked to Milan or a return to Serbia.
“These are choices we are making internally. Sofyan is working separately, we have not yet received an offer and if we do, then we will evaluate it. If there are players who are not happy, let them come out and talk to us and we’ll try to make them happy.
“We are looking at the market for them and we’ll see if offers come in that we can consider.”
There had been reports Abdelhamid Sabiri was frozen out and not part of coach Vincenzo Italiano’s plans.
“There is no truth in that, it is totally invented. Sabiri is a Fiorentina player, we bought him in January and he remained on loan at Sampdoria. He has a slight muscular issue and we hope he will be ready to play next week.”
Barone was asked if Fiorentina are trying to bring in any more players, especially to strengthen the squad if they qualify for the Conference League group phase and he tried to give a diplomatic response.
“This is a very delicate match, we are playing to go through and must take it one game at a time. We have ambitions on where we want to end up, but we have to achieve them on the field. We can only do so much on paper, the rest happens on the pitch with so many different variables.
“We are alert on the market, keeping an eye on what could happen, we are evaluating it one player at a time.”