For much of the past week, Jean-Philippe Mateta has looked as though he’s the striker that Juventus are solely targeting to try and bring in some attacking reinforcements during the winter transfer window.
Making that happen, though, was not going to be as easy as the club might have thought when they opened talks with Crystal Palace late last week.
What does that mean?
Juventus appear to be quickly getting a backup plan into place.
According to multiple reports out of Italy from the likes of Sky Italia’s Gianluca Di Marzio, ilBianconero’s Romeo Agresti and others on Tuesday, Juventus are in talks with Fenerbahce for striker Youssef En-Nesyri, who has just returned from the Africa Cup of Nations with Morocco. The 28-year-old En-Nesyri, who moved to Turkey in 2024, has reportedly returned from AFCON and found out that he is suddenly on the market, with Fenerbahce open to loaning him out for the second half of the 2025-26 season.
New talks between Juventus and Fenerbahce regarding En-Nesyri are expected on Wednesday.
Di Marzio is reporting that, as of right now, En-Nesyri is the closer of the two strikers to signing with Juventus when compared to Mateta.
En-Nesyri played his entire senior club career in Spain before moving to Turkey in a €20 million deal from Sevilla, a club-record fee at the time for Fenerbahce. Since moving to Turkey, the 6-foot-2 En-Nesyri has scored 33 goals in 67 games for Fenerbahce, including seven goals in 21 appearances in all competitions so far this season.
That’s not exactly an impressive tally for somebody who is being looked upon to potentially upgrade Juventus’ attack that has struggled to consistently score goals this season.
En-Nesyri is also reportedly a target of Antonio Conte and Napoli, who look set to be loaning out summer signing Lorenzo Lucca this month, potentially to Nottingham Forest where he would join a couple of familiar names from recent Juventus past.
