Inter turn to Lyon star after Everton reject €45m Iliman Ndiaye bid and Ademola Lookman loses interest in San Siro switch

Inter invested a major portion of their summer trying to bring Lookman to San Siro but Atalanta's strict stance on not budging in their €50 million (£43m/$58m) player valuation resulted in the deal to fall through. Lookman is no longer interested in moving to Inter with the club now monitoring Lyon's Fofana, according to Calciomercato. The Italian club also made a deadline day move for Everton's Ndiaye, launching a €45m (£39m/$52m) bid, but were swiftly turned down in their pursuit.

Inter were pushing to sign Lookman for much of the summer but Atalanta were extremely adamant of not offloading the star player to a domestic rival, not at least until their demands were met. The situation turned messy further with Lookman's public transfer request which irked the Atalanta support and hierarchy. The 2024 Champions League finalist switched their interest to Ndiaye at the end days of the transfer window but it was too late by then. Reportedly, Bayern Munich also approached Atalanta to sign Lookman on the deadline day.  

A Gent academy product, Fofana was signed by Lyon last year in deal worth €17m (£14m/$19m) plus €5m in add-ons. The Belgian club also inserted a 20% sell-on clause in Fofana's contract. The winger played a total of 41 games across all competition last year in which he scored 11 goals and registered six assists. Fofana has had an astounding start to the 2025-26 season as well, having already scored a goal and provided an assist in the first three games of the league.

Inter are set to face Juventus next in the league before Cristian Chivu's side fly to Amsterdam to face Ajax in their opening Champions League fixture on September 18.