...This summer we could have signed a top Italian GK for free with high wages. We didn't even try...
of course we tried. we talked to raiola and donnarumma, but tek had no offers due to high wages.
i don't think any club (besides psg) can afford 2 goalies on 6.5m and ~10m, especially not this season. the market is completely dead, only some pl clubs and psg can afford to sign relatively expensive deals. mind you, top3 "non psg, non pl" deals are upamecano to bayern (42m), abraham to roma (40m), de paul to atleti (35m), and there's nothing else above 30m. in fact, there's only 10 deals above 35m this summer, everything included. 2 years ago, there was 27 (!!!) players that were more expensive than 35m. covid and closed stadiums completely killed the liquidity of non-epl clubs. smaller clubs like aston villa are helped by oil clubs too, villa just spent some of that grealish money on someone i don't even know.
anyway, bottom line is that we of course tried for donnarumma, but ticiconomics and covid tied our hands. be prepared for 3 years like that: if our players won't take pay cuts, they will be very hard to move. so no replacements can be expected either.