Juventus offer Gonzalo Higuain to Chelsea in exchange for Alvaro Morata — report

A week after Juventus’ GM Beppe Marotta categorically denied the possibility of Gonzalo Higuain leaving Juventus and Alvaro Morata’s coming in to replace him, it seems that both of those scenarios may be more plausible than he would’ve wanted us to believe.

According to a report by the Evening Standard’s Simon Johnson, Juventus have in fact offered Gonzalo Higuain in their bid to lure Alvaro Morata back to their club.

An offer in and of itself doesn’t mean anything of course. Many agreements and decisions would have to be made for this to happen, even if it would not make much sense to replace young and (still) promising striker with an older version who’s probably on the downward slope of his career.

That said, the rumor does play into the narrative of Morata wanting to return to Italy, just as the “chance” meeting he and his agent had the other day with Juventus technical director Fabio Paratici.

Still, Marotta’s categorical denial of any movement sounded convincing at the time.

On Higuain:

“At the moment no-one is in that position, so I have to say that Mario Mandzukic will be a Juventus player next year too. Gonzalo Higuain? No, no player is for sale. Higuain is in his second season season with us, he did very well and we’re very happy with him.

“If we were to receive offers we wouldn’t consider them.”

On Morata:

“Now we are in the most important phase of the transfer market, so as always, every day, they link Juventus with many players. That also applies to the Morata affair which is on the agenda today. The fact is that the most important players of this Agnelli cycle who have gone away all carry with them a great memory of Juventus, and almost all of them want to savour the Juventus climate.

“Beyond that though these are simply rumours. I want to deny them, we don’t want to deceive anyone. We already have a great attack of international calibre, so it’s an area where we don’t have to make any bets. Therefore, at this point, any operation seems totally utopian”.

-Guiseppe Marotta; source: Football Italia

However, Silly Season listens to no one and this wouldn’t be the first time anyone in the world of football has lied or bent the truth just a little bit.

Or maybe the situation has simply changed in the past week.

Whatever the reason may be, it seems that the rumors of Morata’s departure or the arrival of a new striker at Chelsea aren’t going to stop anytime soon.

Stay tuned!