Picking up what are presumably the same rumors that were floating around yesterday in Italy, The Times reports this morning that Chelsea and future manager Antonio Conte are planning a raid on AS Roma, with Miralem Pjanic (via this "exclusive" missive at TuttoMercatoWeb) and Radja Nainggolan (as per previous rumors) targeted as key reinforcements for next year's squad.
It's unclear how Conte's making these recommendations when, also according to The Times, he has yet to personally meet with Chelsea and he's also concentrating on his job with the Italian national team, but I suppose it's not that hard to draw up a shortlist, hand it to your agents, and have them deliver it into the hands of Granovskaia & Co. Hopefully the Board will be more receptive to this shortlist than the last time they were handed a list of targes, right, Jose?
But, moving on. The report also claims that Conte is aware of this oft-repeated but seldom seen ideal of the Chelsea youth revolution — hello there, new RLC contract and hefty wage rise to £60k/week (!!) — and is willing to be the man to put that into real action.
Sounds good. Maybe even too good? Pjanic certainly would be a lovely player to add to the squad and we could certainly do worse than Nainggolan as far as midfield reinforcements go. Both players dovetail nicely with the rumors of Conte looking to poach Roma technical director Walter Sabatini as well.