Juventus linked with yet another Chelsea midfielder

Rather than blowing stories about medical staff and bench demotions and promotions out of proportion, the Italian press seems to be merrily picking their way through the Chelsea squad, linking midfielder after midfielder with Juventus while the Italian champions pursue Julian Draxler of Schalke 04.  At the start of the summer, it was Oscar, then Mohamed Salah was briefly linked.  The Juan Cuadrado rumor came back around earlier this week, and now, the Ramires rumors have done so as well.

There were a few tentative rumors already about the five-year Chelsea veteran yesterday — and some of those may have even filtered over to England, such as in this report from the Evening Standard — but now the bigger Italian outlets are starting to pick things up as well.  Corriere dello Sport are leading the way, and they seem to be implying that Ramires is the insurance policy should Draxler prove too expensive for Juve.  The latest rumor there points to a fee in the region of €30m.  Or maybe Ramires is the replacement for Khedira, who is out for two months.  Either way, Juventus are supposedly making the calls and testing the waters.

Then again, Chelsea are supposedly looking to extend Ramires's contract, and we're supposedly not looking to sell anyone, and I certainly haven't heard any rumblings whatsoever of Ramires being at all unhappy, so who knows.  It sounds like a bunch of nonsense, but nonsense seems to be order of the day during this long midweek until the Manchester City match, so let's have some more of it.  At least this one's got a bit more to do with actual football.