Managers tend to sign players they know well. So it is no surprise that Chelsea are linked with several players from the Serie A as Italian manager Antonio Conte gets set to take over in July. The Roma trio of Antonio Rudiger, Kostas Manolas and Radja Nainggolan, the Juventus pair of Kwadwo Asamoah and Paul Pogba, Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly have all been linked with moves to the club even before the manager officially takes over.
This represents a significant shift in Chelsea’s transfer targets and seems to be highly influenced by the incoming Conte. While it is a positive sign that Conte looks to be involved heavily in the club’s transfer policy, the club could do better than to plunder the Serie A’s best talents. Historically, a few iconic Chelsea players made the switch from Italy. Gianfranco Zola, regarded as the greatest player in Chelsea history joined from Parma in 1996 and took Chelsea to new heights in his time in London. Marcel Desailly joined from AC Milan and went on to become club captain and a key component of Chelsea’s defence for years before relinquishing his spot to John Terry.
Since then, Chelsea have had a string of high-profile signings from the Serie A that have backfired on the club. Adrian Mutu and Hernan Crespo joined Chelsea from Parma and Inter Milan respectively in 2003. Mutu misfired both on and off the pitch while Hernan Crespo turned out to be a mixed bag. Both signings were made by another Italian manager- Claudio Ranieri and it was the last time the club looked into talents from the Serie A with close introspection. In 2006, Mourinho famously signed Andriy Shevchencko who, if not for Fernando Torres, would still be regarded as Chelsea’s biggest flop. Two years later, the Brazilian manager Luis Felipe Scolari signed Ricardo Quaresma on loan, who did not make much of an impact. Neither did the youngster Fabio Borini, who was signed from Italy for the Chelsea youth team.
Post Borini, Chelsea rarely ventured into signing talents from the Serie A. Even Italian manager Carlo Ancelotti, who had a two year spell at the club preferred to keep away from Serie A players although he did publicly admit wanting to sign Andrea Pirlo. Who wouldn’t anyway? But gone are the days when Italian stars mean legends like Pirlo. In the past few years, several high profile Serie A players turned out to be after-thoughts at Premier League clubs. Alberto Aquilani, Stefan Jovetic, Erik Lamela, Mario Balotelli, our own Juan Cuadrado and the list goes on. Equally interesting is the number of Premier League rejects shining in Serie A. Gervinho joined Roma from Arsenal and looked like a player reborn. So did Mohamed Salah when he joined Fiorentina from Chelsea and Cuadrado when he went back to Italy on loan to Juventus.
Would it be a good idea to plunder the Serie A then? Each case is different and there are certainly good players in the Serie A, but apart from Juventus, no other team has made significant progress in Europe in the last few years. There are question marks over the players’ ability to perform against top teams. Also, there are just four senior home-grown players left at the club (Begovic, Cahill, Terry, Fabregas) and we are not going to fill that up with Serie A players, except of course if the player was Paul Pogba.
I would welcome Pogba to the club with both arms wide but I am not yet completely sold on the sudden interest in Serie A players.
