Boasting talent to spare and a proven track record in front of goal in two of Europe’s top leagues, Mauro Icardi should be hot property going into the next transfer window. Instead he finds himself in a curious position: a reverse tug of war between Inter and Paris Saint-Germain, in which neither team wishes to secure his services.
After a nightmare end to 2018-19 in Milan, which saw him stripped of the Inter captaincy and consigned to the bench, Icardi must have thought his luck had changed when the French giants swooped last summer.
The Argentina international initially made all the right noises in Paris. Taking advantage of injuries in PSG’s stellar attacking line-up, he announced himself to the Parc des Princes faithful with seven goals in his first six outings to become an instant favourite.
Even with first-team football increasingly hard to come by in the weeks leading up to Ligue 1‘s coronavirus-enforced halt, his numbers were more than respectable. Icardi boasts 12 strikes in just 14 starts in the French top flight this season, more than Edinson Cavani and level with superstar Neymar. But at a time when he should be thinking about consolidating his position alongside the likes of the Brazilian and Kylian Mbappe, he continues to hover precariously close to the exit.
In a repeat of the actions which saw him ostracised from the Argentina team and hustled out of San Siro, it is off the field that the striker’s behaviour continues to let him down. The decision to decamp from Paris during the coronavirus outbreak to the luxurious house he shares with wife Wanda Nara near Lake Como – one of the most heavily affected areas in Europe, situated in the virus-ravaged north of Italy – was met with bemusement by his temporary employers, while Wanda has made no secret of her desire to return to Italy.
