Carlos Bocanegra on Tuesday stated that Atlanta United’s match against Indy Eleven in the U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal would “potentially” serve as Caleb Wiley’s final one with the club, ahead of a reported transfer to Chelsea and subsequent loan to Strasbourg.
“We’ve had some conversations with him over the past few weeks, past few days,” Bocanegra said. “He’s quite excited to be here and it’s emotional for him. So he’s quite keen to play, but it does look like we have something in place imminently, and hopefully we can share with you guys in the next couple of days.”
Wiley was in Rob Valentino’s starting XI in what appears to be his sendoff match. From a larger standpoint, Atlanta will look to advance to the Open Cup semifinals by dispatching of second-division Indy.
As far as possible incoming players, Bocanegra didn’t confirm or deny reports that Atlanta was close to acquiring Atalanta midfielder and Russian international Alexsei Miranchuk, while noting that the rumors will intensify with the club having a pair of open DP slots at their disposal.
“Anybody that potentially their club wants to move them on, or we have talked about, or our cousin’s friend’s sister have talked about, we will get linked to them right now,” he said. “So I think hopefully closer to July 18th, we’ll have some concrete news for you and all those…I would say we’re speaking to probably 15 people right now.”