As we said on Monday, the fact AS Roma managed to get a win and Chris Smalling played a big part in that by putting in a good performance has got the Italian media talking about him staying permanently once again.
The big problem remains the finances of the deal, and we won’t bore you again with the details, but without Champions League football, the Serie A side won’t be able to afford the centre-back.
However, this won’t stop attempts from being made to keep Smalling around for longer, even if Manchester United make life even more difficult for them.
Corriere dello Sport explain the Old Trafford club are ‘prepared to extend his contract and automatically increase his valuation’, as the 30-year-old’s deal in England is set to expire in 2022.
Of course, Smalling would have to agree to this, which is why the player’s agent are reportedly ‘going to be in Rome in the coming days’.
As things stand, the Serie A club and Manchester United have yet to ‘sit around a table’, but one of the ‘solutions to consider could be trying to renew the loan’.
At this point, with Roma in fifth potentially six points behind Atalanta if the Bergamo club win their game in hand, that might be the only way Smalling stays in Italy’s capital.This is all corroborated by Il Tempo, who go as far as saying that a meeting could take place as early as Wednesday to ‘plan the strategy’ to convince Manchester United.
Certainly something worth considering for United as well, especially if Ole Gunnar Solskjaer doesn’t intend to use the England international going forward.
