Roma Shift Focus to Vazquez

Please don’t make me talk about Riyad Mahrez, please don’t take me talk about Riyad Mahrez, please don’t make me talk about Riyad Mahrez. That’s the mantra I repeat each morning as I greet the rising sun; sometimes it’s successful, other times not so much. Today, though, is a great day because this morning’s rumors only tangentially deal with that aforementioned Leicester City winger.

With the Foxes turning a deaf ear to his pleas to talk with Roma, the rumor mongers of the football world report that Roma will instead that take same €35 million meant for Mahrez and shift it a few hundred miles south to Madrid. If the Champions of Europe’s preseason has shown one thing, it’s that Marco Asensio is a name on the rise, and when coupled with Isco Alarcon’s impressive summer, Lucas Vazquez may soon find himself on the outside looking in at the Bernabeu.

As first reported by Gianluca Di Marzio a week ago, Roma have kept tabs on the 26-year-old attacking midfielder/winger, for whom they reportedly lodged a €30 million bid last week. Well, if you believe the latest twist in this story, Roma is simply and indiscriminately offering the now rejected €35 million Mahrez bid to Madrid for Vazquez; it’s like trying to pass off a generic gift card at Walmart because it was rejected at Target.

Vazquez is an intriguing option for sure, but as we discussed last week, he’s not the left-footed right winger EDF has been craving all summer, so it seems a bit odd that they’d just blindly throw around €35 million like that.

Hold tight, we’re almost through this nightmare.