Reports: Federico Chiesa still hopeful of a Juventus move this summer

With so much of Juventus’ attention — and transfer budget — being directed toward the chase of Matthijs de Ligt as well as other defensive and midfield improvements, it’s sometimes easy to forget that a lot of the late-spring chatter involved Federico Chiesa.

You know, the fact that Juve and Chiesa quickly agreed to personal terms.

Or, even though Fiorentina’s new owner Rocco Commisso saying Chiesa isn’t going anywhere, reports continued to suggest that Chiesa wanted to leave the club this summer and sign with Juventus.

Well, a month or so later, those same kind of reports are back again.

According to front page stories in both the Corriere dello Sport and Tuttosport, Chiesa’s desire to sign with Juventus has no wavered even though every signal Commisso and the rest of the Fiorentina brass have given is that they have no intention to sell the 21-year-old winger this summer. The Corriere dello Sport is describing this as “the moment of truth” when it comes to Chiesa’s situation, while Tuttosport has declared that Chiesa will speak with Commisso and will seek some kind of solution. (Hint: A solution that sees him get the OK from Fiorentina’s new owner to get a move to Juventus.)

Ah, summer transfer rumors when they start to be the same kind of thing as we heard six or eight weeks ago ...

Who knows what to really make out of these latest rumors for Chiesa, who has been included in Fiorentina’s traveling squad for their participation in the International Champions Cup later this month. We know that Juventus are closing in on committing around €100 million worth of transfer fees — if not more — on defensive improvements, so how much Juve have in the budget left remains to be seen. (And it’s not like Fiorentina would let Chiesa come anything close to cheap when they do sell.) With the appointment of Maurizio Sarri, Paulo Dybala and Douglas Costa — at least for now — seem to be pieces that will still be a part of Juventus’ squad come the closing of the transfer window period.

But, the thing is, Sarri is also the kind of manager who would love a player that has the kind of characteristics that Chiesa does, which makes these latest rumors something that might not be able to be shoved aside as Tuttosport being Tuttosport.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that maybe it’s something, maybe it’s nothing. (How’s that for being a helping hand in trying to digest the latest Chiesa-to-Juventus link?)