Report: Juventus reject Chelsea’s €90 million bid for Daniele Rugani, Gonzalo Higuain

At this point, Maurizio Sarri trying to bring as much of Serie A with him to his new job at Chelsea seems like a given. And the presumptive Italy-centered transfer campaign seems to rely heavily on two players currently employed in Turin, Daniele Rugani and Gonzalo Higuain, both of whom have been coached by Sarri in the not-so-distant past.

According to Premium Sport, Chelsea’s first attempt to sign the Juve duo has been punted into the stands like Rugani does when clearing the ball out of trouble.

Per the report, Chelsea put forth a bid worth €90 million for Rugani and Higuain. However, Juventus has given a definitive no to that near-nine-figure bid to try and bring to former Sarri-coached players to London this summer, something that seems to be one of Chelsea’s main objectives now that they aren’t playing any kind of song and dance with Napoli.

With that said, there’s also this as the clock worked toward midnight in Italy:

We figured that somebody was bound to leave when Juventus shelled out over €100 million worth of transfer fees for Cristiano Ronaldo earlier this month. Higuain always seemed like one of the most logical departures based on the fact that he’s still got plenty of value on the market even though he’s now on the wrong side of 30. Rugani, as much as the fact that he’s 23 years old would be tough to see leave, getting upwards of €50 million for him might just be too much for Juventus to pass up at this point. (The presence of Mattia Caldara does make a potential Rugani departure a little easier to take, I guess.)

So now we wait.

If this deal — or two separate deals — are a thing, it seems like Chelsea want to get them done rather quickly knowing that Sarri is now running the show and the start of the Premier League season is quickly approaching.