Sky Italia: Juve agree to terms with Olivier Giroud; Everton balking at Moise Kean loan

On the latest episode of As The Strikers Turn ...

We await Luis Suarez to take his Italian passport test and potentially negotiate his exit from Barcelona. We start to think that Edin Dzeko moving to Juventus isn’t probably going to happen because of the domino effect that Nico Zaniolo’s injury has suddenly had. That is what we’ve kinda figured for the last 48 hours or so. But there’s two little nuggets of information that came out in the Italian press Thursday night that is useful as Juve look for some sort of compatible No. 9 before the 2020-21 season kicks off next week.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new name to add to the mix. And, judging by who it is, it’s also quite the good looking face, too.

That is 33-year-old Chelsea striker Olivier Giroud, who has been linked with moves to Serie A in the past and thrown around as a potential low-cost option for Juventus in previous transfer windows. He is another striker in the kind of pattern that Juve are reportedly trying to sign this summer: somebody in the early- or mid-30s who would be a short-term stopgap during this clearly financially strapped times where the club is not able to spend much money on transfer fees at all.

According to Gianluca Di Marzio, Juventus and Giroud have agreed to the framework of a two-year contract that would see him earn €4.5 million net a season in Turin. Knowing that Chelsea have actually done a lot of business and signed a young and talented striker in the form of Timo Werner, that could mean Giroud is available if the Blues decide to let him walk.

Giroud, who was heavily linked with a move to Inter Milan during the January transfer window, scored eight goals in 18 Premier League matches last season.

But he’s not the only bit of striker news that came along during the nighttime hours from somebody who gets a paycheck from Sky Sport Italia. From Di Marzio’s Sky compatriot Fabrizio Romano:

MOISE KEAN! MOISE KEAN! MOISE KEAN!

Yes, the rumors of Juventus being interested in bringing the 20-year-old Kean back to Turin a little over a year after selling him to Everton aren’t going away. And hey, that’s perfectly fine with — especially with the current framing of the deal where it would at the very least be a very low-risk kind of loan move that may or may not have some kind of option to buy attached to it.

Kean is really the only striker option under the age of 30 that is being linked with Juventus right now. The rumors have pretty much cooled when it comes to Arkadiusz Krystian Milik, with his most likely destination being Roma before the Zaniolo injury meant that Cengiz Under’s spot at the club suddenly became a lot more important.

And, as we’ve come to know, the willingness of Everton to actually be cool with Kean leaving Merseyside is not all that favorable to Juventus’ chances of bringing him back to Turin before the summer transfer window ends.