Reports: Dzeko Has Five Year Deal With Roma

It's been another manic Monday on the transfer rumor mill, and by manic, I mean annoying. Making matters worse, the transfer window hasn't even officially opened yet, so we've essentially been speculatively talking about speculative things for the past month. So, allow me to add further fuel to the fire--a giant, Bosnian sized fire at that.

Everyone's favorite Italian rumor monger, Gianluca Di Marzio, reports that Roma have agreed to personal terms with Manchester City forward Edin Dzeko. This report has since been picked up by and/or corroborated by Football Italia via Sky Sport Italia because that's just how these things work.

Sounds okay, though, right?

Not so fast, if Di Marzio is correct, Roma has just slid a five year deal across the table to Mr. Dzeko, one that would pay him €4.5m per season, only one million off his current clip. So I guess Miralem Pjanic was right when he claimed that Dzeko would run to Roma and that wages wouldn't be a problem. At those figures, Dzeko would be Roma's second highest paid player, trailing only De Rossi.

That's not the part of this deal that should worry you, however; you have to pay Premiership players a certain amount in order for them to leave the British Isles, but sweet baby Jesus, why on earth would Walter Sabatini offer a 29-year-old player a five year deal?

Dzeko could help Roma, no doubt, but this is the classic "paying for past production" type of deal. Even if Dzeko can knock home two dozen goals over the first two years of the deal, the remaining three would likely be an albatross hanging around the clubs neck; there's simply no way Roma would get proper value out of Dzeko on a five year deal, one that could potentially cost the club close to €40m between transfer fees and wages. I'll grant you that target men can remain effective into their 30s, but Dzeko hasn't shown anywhere near the consistency, or production for that matter, as someone like Luca Toni or latter day Ruud Van Nistelrooy (my favorite Non-Totti player ever, fyi)

While I'm sure clubs agreeing to personal terms with transfer targets prior to reaching the same accord with their current club isn't that strange, we still have no clue how much City hopes to extract from his sale; €20m is probably the baseline, and we haven't even mentioned the vomit inducing notion that Roma would sacrifice Adem Ljajic as part of the deal.

There are benefits to bringing in Dzeko, of course, he would certainly provide a gigantic and skilled target capable of latching onto all of Roma's wayward crosses, but we'll save the pro-Dzeko stance until the PDF comes out.

For now, let's hope the particulars of this deal aren't true. A five year deal to Dzeko is bad business, and if Roma has gotten it into her head that it's now or never, that they must mortgage the future to win next season, then there's only one course of action....

Dare to Zlatan.