Former Inter Milan president Massimo Moratti has revealed his excitement over the prospect of his beloved club signing Manchester City’s up-and-coming young striker Gabriel Jesus.
Premier League heavyweights Manchester City wrapped up the signing of 19-year-old Jesus from his hometown club Palmeiras last month. Since then, he made an impactful entrance to City’s first-team, notching an assist in his first start for his new side against Crystal Palace in the FA Cup on the 28th of June.
In his league debut four days later against West Ham, he played a pivotal role in two goals for City, scoring one and assisting in another as the 2011 FA Cup champions went on to thrash the Hammers 4-0.
Inter Milan were reported to also be interested in signing the Brazilian centre-forward, but nothing serious came out of it, despite the club recently getting heavy investment from new owners, Chinese conglomerate Suning Sports.
Now it appears those reports were accurate, after Moratti has revealed in an interview with Sky Italia that his club was indeed in the running to snap up the former Palmeiras target man.
Instead, the Nerazurri went for a different Gabriel, signing 20-year-old Gabriel Barbosa from Brazilian Serie A giants Santos in August of last year. Despite being labelled as the “new Neymar”, Barbosa has failed to make an impact at the San Siro this season, as he is yet to score a goal for Inter so far.
When asked if his club bought the wrong Gabriel, Moratti said, “No. They are players with different styles.”
The Inter ex-supremo added, “But now that it has become known, I thought it’d be better to come out and reveal that the club were interested in signing the other (Jesus).”
Nevertheless, Moratti has expressed excitement over Inter’s renewed interest in signing the Manchester City starlet, saying, “In Jesus I see a player who makes you love football more. When you see his talents, you think of his potential. From there, as a club, you think of what you can do to improve on his skills.”
Although many believe it would be unlikely for Manchester City to let go of their Brazilian wonderkid any time soon, Inter Milan will definitely be keeping a close eye on his development from this point forward.
Jesus has a contract with Manchester City until 2021.