De Rossi Close to Contract Extension, Nainggolan Rejects Premiership & More

We’ll take a quick break from all the Francesco Totti and Luciano Spalletti talk and focus on a bit of good news, the impending Daniele De Rossi contract extension. We’ve covered this intermittently throughout the year, but between all the normal Roma melodramas and the wild swings on the pitch, it’s sort of got lost in the shuffle.

Daniele De Rossi is by no means the same wildman he was when he was 27 or 28, back when he was arguably the best box-to-box midfielder in the game, but his performance this season—37 appearances and well over 2,000 minutes—has given hope that he’ll continue to age gracefully. Now, you should go out and throw a new five-year deal and dear old DDR, but he’s more than earned a two to three year pact.

And hey, wouldn’t you know it, Monch is prepping a new two-year deal for De Rossi. Reports are circulating that De Rossi is being offered a new one-year deal with an option for a second, one which would pay him a reported €4 million per season. Several months ago, we speculated he’d pull down somewhere around three or three-and-a-half, so we’re still in the same neighborhood. I’ll leave it to you to decide if De Rossi is worth €4 million per season, but you have to like this sign of intent from Monchi; he’s going to enjoy his slightly larger checkbook.

But Danielino isn’t the only Roma midfielder making the headlines this week. Radja Nainggolan, the man who gives Antonio Conte the vapors, opened up about his decision to spurn the greener pastures of the Premiership for a stay in the Eternal City. Speaking to Wojciech Szczesny via Roma TV, Radja revealed his love for the Roma lifestyle

It was a lifestyle choice. I like the lifestyle here. If there was Arsenal and the way you talk about the club, maybe I should’ve gone…I would like to stay for the next five years at Roma.

That last bit was tongue in cheek and may have been lost in translation, but those two actually speak fantastic English. In any case, it’s certainly great to hear Nainggolan confirm what we had long suspected, that he simply loves Roma, the city and the club. So, for those of you keeping score at home, Roma have seemingly struck the lottery again, getting and keeping a world class player they otherwise had no business retaining...but seriously, watch that clip, it’s pretty entertaining.

Of course, since this is Roma we’re talking about, Nainggolan is now suddenly in doubt for this weekend’s clash with Juventus. That’s all the news fit to print for today, until next time...