Report: Nicolo Zaniolo won’t renew with Roma, is Juve’s top summer target

Over the last two seasons, Juventus have gone out and signed some of the best young talent that Serie A has to offer. First Federico Chiesa, then Manuel Locatelli and most recently Dusan Vlahovic — they’ve all arrived in very highly-anticipated fashion as well as combined to make a core where the “oldest” has just turned 24 years old.

All of them wanted to sign with Juventus and only Juventus — and got it.

Could there be another one of those situations brewing?

According to a report from La Gazzetta dello Sport Juventus correspondent Luca Bianchin, young Italian attacking midfielder Nicolo Zaniolo will not being signing a new contract with his current club, Roma, with the current deal that pays him €2.5 million annually set to expire in 2024. Roma, obviously, want to tie down the talented 22-year-old for the long term, but Zaniolo is reportedly reluctant to do so. That has opened the door for Juventus to try and bring the boyhood Juventino to Turin this coming summer, one that could very much be an active one where a number of players could be both arriving and departing.

Zaniolo is to believed to have a transfer fee between €40 million and €50 million.

Now, the natural thing that comes with this is to wonder what Paulo Dybala’s future with Juventus may be and if Zaniolo would be the natural replacement for Juve’s current No. 10. Dybala, despite it being the end of February, still hasn’t signed a contract extension and is now just a couple of months away from being a free agent and free to sign with another club. That, of course, has plenty of us wondering if we’re watching his final months as a Juventus player.

With Zaniolo, who Juventus has been linked with every now and then over the last couple of years, he is also facing a rather uncertain future with the reported desire to not extend his contract. Talks are currently on hold, and with this latest report that Zaniolo doesn’t want to extend his deal in the Italian capital, who knows if they will actually resume.

There have been reports in recent weeks that have said that Weston McKennie — who is currently out injured with a pair of broken bones in his left foot — could be included in a deal for Zaniolo, taking full advantage of the American connection between the Juve midfielder and Roma’s ownership group.

Either way, there are certainly a lot of factors that need to be made a little more clear before something can materialize. Like, you know, the fact that two contract extensions are potentially dependent on Zaniolo moving to Turin or not. Sounds like a simple matter, right?