Inter Milan closing in on Ondrej Duda

ESPN reports that Inter are in a pole position to to sign Ondrej Duda, a young attacking midfielder playing for Legia Warsaw. The 20 year old has attracted the attention of a number of Premier League teams due to his good performances in Poland (getting 5 goals and 4 assists in 25 league apperances). He has apparently drawn comparisons to Angel Di Maria and Marek Hamsik, and has already gotten two senior caps for the Slovakian national team.

It is this promise that has motivated Mancini to move in for Duda. The two clubs have reportedly agreed to a transfer fee of €7.6m and all that remains is contract negotiations with the player. If all goes well we should expect to see Duda in a Nerazzurri jersey fairly early this summer.

It does look a little strange that Inter would pay so much for Duda. Transfermrkt.com only has his value listed at €3m, but there is always a risk in signing young players (especially ones that multiple clubs are interested in) so we'll have to see if it pays off.

What's interesting about this deal is that Duda is an attacking midfielder, one of the few positions that Inter arguably have too many players pushing for a starting position. With Mancini's favored 4312 formation there can only be one player behind the strikers and Mancini already has Shaqiri and Hernanes there. It would be interesting to see how Duda fits in, if he will be a more long term solution, there will be a formation change next season, or if one of the current trequartistas gets sold (aka Hernanes, cause Shaqiri is going nowhere).