Even if he has yet to make his first-team debut for Dinamo Zagreb, Edin Julardzija is already making a name for himself in Croatia.
The 19-year-old, who makes more of his appearances for the club in the UEFA Youth League, has represented his country at U18 level a few times, and is attracting attention from some of the biggest clubs in the Premier League.
The news comes from SassuoloNews.it, who report as an exclusive that Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham are already following his progress, as are Sassuolo, Inter and Roma.
For Frank Lampard’s side, they will already have had a chance to watch him closely, as Julardzija featured against their UEFA Youth League squad last year in the quarter finals, which the Blues ended up winning on penalties.
As for Arsenal and Tottenham, they are likely to have sent scouts to watch the young attacking midfielder in action, although when and where isn’t stated.
After the success of developing players like Dani Olmo, Marko Pjaca, Mateo Kovačić and a certain Luka Modrić, it certainly isn’t a surprise to see Premier League teams trying to get a head start on the opposition to save themselves some money by buying the talent at the source.
Chelsea have done it a number of times, and Arsenal and Tottenham (who were the ones to buy Modrić from Dinamo back in 2009) aren’t strangers to it either.