Better than Pogba? - Serbian hotshot excites top clubs

Coach of Italian club Lazio, Simone Inzaghi, hopes hotshot midfielder Sergej Milinkovic-Savic (SMS) can become "better than Paul Pogba".

SMS is one of the hottest properties in world football these days after a couple really impressive seasons in Serie A and in Europe, but the Lazio coach is not getting drawn in by the transfer speculation around his star midfielder.

It was claimed today that Paris Saint-Germain are ready to pay €170m to sign the Serbian, with Juventus, Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Chelsea among those interested in player.

ATTRACTING INTEREST

"He's 22 years old and he's doing well, so it's normal he'll attract interest," Inzaghi shrugged before pointing out that the youngster is not affected by the rumours.

"I talk to him often though, he's happy here. He's happy at Lazio, and he knows if teams like that want him then it's down to Lazio.

"I'm happy when there's interest in our players, it means we're doing well, but right now he's very happy at Lazio. Last year he signed a long new contract with us.

"We're talking about a very young player who has both quality and physicality, whereas often players are deficient in one of those areas.

"So Milinkovic is highly regarded, and I hope he can become even better than Pogba, who is definitely one of the best."

Lazio started the season well, but they've managed just one win in their last five league games.

"The priority is to get back to winning, because we've failed to do that too often in the league," he said.

"We're obliged to improve our position in the table and we want to start doing that."

The club is expected to move for Uruguayan defender Martin Caceres in the January transfer window, even though Inzaghi himself remained coy on those rumours.

"I really don't want to talk about incoming or outgoing players right now," Inzaghi insisted.

Milinkovic-Savic has already scored five league goals and provided one assist from his box-to-box midfield role and is averaging 2.2 shots per game and an 81 per cent pass success rate, including 1.5 key passes per game.