5 players Juventus should sign this summer: Midfield needs an overhaul
By John Vaccaro
Hans Hateboer
A month ago, this move would have seemed bit far-fetched. Atalanta is currently in the midst of the most successful run in team history and there isn’t really any reason to think it’s ending any time soon unless they start selling their better players. However, the economic impact of the coronavirus could end up forcing them to make some sacrifices.
Atalanta is historically a smaller club that doesn’t have the strongest financial backing. That means that losing out on ticket sales for the rest of the season and whatever money the whole league will be missing out on from the tv rights deals because there aren’t games to televise could be a major blow to Atalanta’s financial situation.
That would lead to them having to sell off whatever players they can afford to in order to keep the core of the team together. I think one of the first players they’d look to sell would be Hans Hateboer because they have Timothy Castagne available to step up as his replacement. Castagne has made pretty regular rotational appearances over the last 3 years and he looks like he could be the heir to Hateboer’s place sooner or later.
As for Juventus, their situation at right-back is pretty bleak. Juan Cuadrado can’t be trusted on the defensive end when Juve is taking on Italy’s best and Danilo is both injury-prone and just not all that great of a right back.
Juve needs to address their right-back issue this summer and if they could land Hateboer, he would quickly solve the problem without costing the club too much. He’s strong enough on the defensive end to be a major improvement over Cuadrado there and he gets forward well enough for Atalanta to fit well in a Maurizio Sarri attack. I think he’s the perfect fit for Juventus right now and he’s somebody they should be targeting if he becomes available.