Radja Nainggolan may keep on saying that he loves Rome, the city, and Roma, the club, and that it would be "very difficult" to leave, but the rumors linking him with a move to Chelsea do not appear to be going away anytime soon. And while we've been on the other end of such rumors and knew that basically nothing was going to happen — see: Eden Hazard to PSG or Real Madrid over the last 2-3 years — the latest words from Nainggolan do hint at something actually going on behind the scenes.
Nainggolan: "There has been contact between the clubs. But as long as there's no agreement, I stay out of it." #cfc pic.twitter.com/rBsl0vHXtd
— Kristof Terreur (@HLNinEngeland) June 4, 2016
Houston, we have contact. Contact is good. Contact is the first step. Can't have an agreement without contact. Contact itself doesn't mean much, but it's better than nothing.
RN: "With Conte they have a manager who always wanted to sign me. #CFC are a big club. But as long there's no contract, there's no transfer"
— Kristof Terreur (@HLNinEngeland) June 4, 2016
Houston, we have a problem. No contract is no good. Contract means everything. But contract is the last step. And it sounds like there's actually a better than zero chance of Chelsea achieving contract status with the 28-year-old Belgian international (who's currently nursing an injury and trying to get fit for Euro 2016).
I had written off the Nainggolan transfer a couple times now, but these latest quotes from his interview with a magazine called 'Nina', which, as far as I can tell is a weekend supplement of HLN, have rekindled a bit of hope. He's no Pogba, but he could just be the next best thing.
Here's a cute behind the scenes video of the photoshoot that accompanied the interview. Such a softy, that Ninja!