What, a weak statement from Paratici? If they really were serious about keeping him it would be Marotta saying something like 'Bonucci is an important part of this club etc etc', not basically say the player is free to leave if he wants.
It's been the club's policy to respect the player's will for a long time now - and you can critisize that policy of course.
But that statement simply confirms the approach we've had towards these matters for the past few years, says nothing about the probability of Bonucci leaving
- - - Updated - - -
If that were the case you're basically saying that playing sweeper and playing as a stopper require the same skills. Which they don't.
He's easily the best sweeper in the world but can you say the same as a CB in a 4 man defense where he has more responsibility to mark, win 1 on 1s and win aerial duels? I don't see how you can.
His best attributes are ball-playing and anticipation which are the primary requirements for sweeper.
Please don't take this as me saying that he's shit as a stopper. I am simply saying if he moves from sweeper to stopper, he goes from the best in the world to whatever is below that. In the coming years I would favour Rugani and Caldara over him as a stopper but I can't say the same for them if we are talking about sweepers.
But I'm not saying that at all
What I'm implying is that Bonucci has the skills to both be an excellent stopper and sweeper.
Look, I was on the same page as you back in 2014. Thought Bonucci was great as a sweeper in a 3 man backline, but not that good in a four man defense.
Then Allegri switched to a four man line, and Bonucci played the best season of his life, thus far at least. Go back to the respective pages in this very thread, people were surprised how well he played, in fact he performed even better in the 4-3-1-2 than in the 3-5-2 we played earlier that season. And imo he's certainly been at least among the best in the world in the role he played back then.
As I see it, he's shown the past few years that he can deliver outstanding performances in both systems.
And even if you look at this season, he's had great performances as a sweeper as well as a stopper - and some subpar ones in both setups too.