It’s been a day of presentations at Torino with new signings Valdifiori, De Silvestri, Rossettini and Castan all speaking to the press. At the end, Sporting Director Gianluca Petrachi spoke to Sky Sport where he explained that; “Joe Hart was an opportunity we took immediately after Samp decided that they did not want to sell Viviano so I thought it would be a great signing if Manchester City were prepared towards his salary. I wanted to keep this away from the press for as long as long as possible because I didn’t want to disappoint our fans. We are very happy he came here and Mihajlovic welcomed him with open arms. He’s also a friend of Attilio Lombardo from their time together at City”.  

The conversation then moved on to Serbian defender Nikola Maksimovic who was sold to Napoli. Petrachi stated that; “He spoke with the coach and stated that he wanted to remain but was anxious to have a better contract. We started talking then for some reason, he just disappeared and it was all very embarrassing. He did change his mind because he stated that he was happy to stay with Torino. It’s put us in a difficult situation but we won’t hold a grudge”.


S.M