Home » Fiorentina Manager Drops Hint On Chelsea Target’s Departure, Player Ready To Push Through A Move

Fiorentina Manager Drops Hint On Chelsea Target’s Departure, Player Ready To Push Through A Move

published :

November 29, 2016

Chelsea boss Antonio Conte may look to sign more players in the January transfer window to ensure his team stay put at the top of the Premier League table.

According to The Express, the former Juventus manager has identified Fiorentina’s Federico Bernardeschi as one of his main targets.

FIORENTINA winger Federico Bernardeschi is ready to push through a move to Chelsea when the transfer window opens in January. Excerpts from the Express report.

The 22-year-old spent the previous season as a wing-back and did exceptionally well in a 3-5-2 system. This season, though, Fiorentina’s mediocre start to the season has seen their manager Paolo Sousa switch to a 4-2-3-1 formation with the Italian attacker employed as a left winger, and he has hit a purple patch with six goals so far. However, the club is not on par with his form, being 5 points adrift of the precious fourth spot with a game in hand.

His manager acknowledged the meltdown of form and also added that his most improved player might leave even sooner as there is a gap between the club and the player’s ambition. The former Swansea boss is hogged with immense pressure at the moment yet has voiced out against the club’s controversial owners, the Della Valle brothers as they didn’t provide the investment needed to improve the squad. Fiorentina was challenging for the scudetto last term yet finished fifth, and the fans were expecting an improved performance this time. This news isn’t something new, though, as current AC Milan head coach Vincenzo Montella left Fiorentina due to a similar issue. Form apart, the biggest challenge now is keeping hold of key players like Bernardeschi.

As stated by Football Italia, Paolo Sousa mentioned, “From what I understand about football, I think he definitely has a future with teams which have different ambitions to Fiorentina.”

Chelsea have already made a number of deals with Fiorentina in recent years, including Juan Cuadrado who failed to hit the ground running and summer signing Marcos Alonso.

Bernardeschi is also a natural left-footer and is a more technically gifted player. He could play as a wing-back and drift inside channels like Eden Hazard and Pedro habitually do, therefore he would be a silver bullet from the bench to break down teams that drop bodies into their own half to guard the post. With Oscar and Loftus-Cheek widely rumoured to leave once the transfer window opens, securing a deal for a player who is tailor-made for Conte’s blueprint is plausible.

Having capped for the Italian senior team 7 times, he is ranked as one of the country’s brightest young talents, which would further tempt Conte to weigh up an offer.