According to the BBC on Thursday, Aaron Ramsey will not be renewing his contract at Arsenal.
What does this mean? Well, as early as January, the Wales international will be allowed to talk to teams outside of England about a free transfer, potentially agreeing a contract with them to then move on a free in June.
He could go down the Emre Can road, which is leaving everyone guessing whether or not he would move, or he can follow Nemanja Vidic’s example, who announced he would be joining Inter in March of the same year his contract with Manchester United came to an end.
While there will undoubtedly be a lot of interest in the Arsenal midfielder’s services, two teams have already been linked with him over the past few months, and those are the aforementioned Juventus and Milan.
We’ll start with the latter, as it’s the most recent one, with Tuttosport claiming a couple of weeks ago that with Ivan Gazidis swapping London for Italy, Aaron Ramsey could do the same.
Furthermore, we find it hard to see Ramsey, who only has three FA Cups to show from his nine seasons with the Gunners (excluding this one), choosing a team that isn’t in the mix for titles on a regular basis.
That’s where Juventus, the kings of free transfers come in.
Rarely have Max Allegri’s side missed out on trying to lure potentially out of contract players, as exemplified by their past acquisitions of Emre Can, Sami Khedira, Paul Pogba, Blaise Matuidi or even Kingsley Coman.
Where there’s an opportunity, Juventus will be there.
Tuttosport were already on the case as early as March of this year, claiming back then there was a 35% chance (which quickly moved up to 40%) of him signing as early as this summer, suggesting there was some remote interest in there.
Now that teams know what Ramsey’s plans are, brace yourselves for a lot more stories surrounding the Arsenal midfielder, who could also stay in the Premier League.
However, this would be the perfect opportunity for him to try something abroad, and if Juventus do come knocking, we fully expect them to be strong favourites, as they know how to make their midfielders shine.
So far, it seems to be purely Tuttosport pushing stories, but that’s likely to change in the coming months.
It’ll start as early as Friday’s newspaper with the update from England making its way to Italy.
Watch this space.
