Report: Juventus preparing take-it-or-leave-it offer to try and sign Axel Witsel in January

If you thought that the Axel Witsel-Zenit St. Petersburg-Juventus triangle of rumors was going to stop during the international break, booooooy you were sorely mistaken.

It may be still relatively early in the work week, but that doesn’t mean that we’ve suddenly escaped a world where Witsel is going to be linked with a move to Juve.

According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Juventus are preparing yet another offer for Witsel, Zenit’s want-away Belgian midfielder who was so close to joining the Italian champions this past summer. The offer will be one much less than what Zenit could have gotten back at the end of August, rather Juventus reportedly putting forth a €6 million figure once the January transfer window opens to try and get Witsel to Turin once and for all after months and months of negotiations.

There is a bit of a caveat with this offer, says the folks over at the Gazzetta:

“prendere o lasciare”

Translation, please?

“take it or leave it”

Ah, this is the power play that Juventus gets to roll with considering when the next round of negotiations with Zenit can take place. Witsel’s contract is over and done with come the summer, which means Zenit will likely lose him for free if they can’t sell him for a likely cut-rate price compared to what they could have gotten for him over the summer months.

If Juventus can’t get the deal done in January for a fee around the €6 million figure thrown out there by the Gazzetta or something else, then so be it. You know Beppe Marotta is going to be perfectly happy to add Witsel to his list of quality players on free transfers during the summer transfer window. That’s just how Beppe rolls, and there’s really nothing any of us can do about it.

So while we wait for January to get here and see just how close Juve get to acquiring Witsel like everybody expects them to do,