AS Roma latest to ‘make contact’ with Hakim Ziyech and find out he makes a lot of money — report

Hakim Ziyech may be having one of the better stretches of his Chelsea career — six games in a row with an appearance, including four starts: best run since this time last year, when he started five in a row and nine of eleven — but he remains one of the likelier to leave in the near future, to help make room for all these new players we’re bringing in.

In fact, it would not be surprising if Sunday’s draw at Anfield proved to be his final match for us, with a potential move possibly materializing over the remaining ten days of the January transfer window, and Chelsea’s next game a fortnight away.

Complicating that expected outcome is the one obvious problem: financials. This is hardly a unique quality to Ziyech, and is the one massive concern for any designs of a squad overhaul we may have. It’s easy to say that we want to rebuild and reshape the team, it’s a lot harder to actually turn those intentions into real action, to find teams willing to pay reasonable transfer fees and willing to pay the less reasonable wages that the players earn at the club with the 8th highest revenue in all of professional football.

Case in point, the story from Gianluca Di Marzio last night, which claims that AS Roma have “made contact” with Ziyech’s representatives, only to find out that yes, he does indeed earn a lot of money (€6.5m annual, they say). AC Milan and Ajax Amsterdam have already walked down this road as well, and there may be several more eyeing the path.

Ziyech does have 2.5 years still left to his contract, so a loan move could be a possibility as well — as long as we comply with FIFA’s new regulations that came into effect recently to limit Loan Army numbers.