Roma After Ante Coric?

As we zero in on the end of 2017 and the calendar flips to 2018, expect the transfer rumors to pick up pace. The winter silly season, unlike its summer counterpart, is extremely compact, making the pace and practicality of the rumors a bit chaotic. On the one hand, given the tight time frame, one would expect the rumors to come even quicker, but teams seldom make large outlays during the winter season, so the flow of rumors is somewhat restrained.

However, when Roma does make a move it’s either completely underwhelming (Vasilis Torosidis), completely stupid (Seydou Doumbia, Victor Ibarbo in the same window) or completely out of left field.

Harken back to the winter of 2016, Roma was clinging to life under Rudi Garcia, who somehow hadn’t been canned yet, and whether it was due to that managerial uncertainty or not, we hadn’t been privy to the same deluge of transfer rumors we normally see. Really, outside of Roma’s desperate attempts to offload Juan Iturbe, it was all quiet on the western front.

However, once they managed to rid themselves of Iturbe to Bournemouth, the rumors moved fast and furious. With 72 hours of the new year, Roma had snared Stephan El Shaarawy and Diego Perotti, neither of whom were subject to protracted transfer rumors, catching us all off guard because, well, because Roma had a glut of wingers at the time.

History has, of course, justified those moves but they are emblematic of the winter transfer window, so when we talk about Roma’s reported pursuit of Zagreb youngster Ante Coric, take it with a grain of salt. The kid heralded as the new Luka Modric (because of course he is) is already being tracked by the usual cohort (Juventus, Manchester City, Liverpool, etc.), but Roma reportedly have an inside track and may have already met with his father-agent (ugh) in recent days.

(Euro-trash club music warning)

If you’ve been watching Roma in recent weeks, you no doubt noticed a lack of creativity coming from the middle of the park, so anything resembling Luka Modric would be a godsend, but this rumor has so many things going against it: his age (20), his dadager and the simple fact that, given Roma’s winter transfer history, we’re talking about him.

Roma lies like a snake in the weeds during the winter. They’ll do something, but I doubt it’ll be this kid.