Reports: Chelsea set to sign former Manchester United striker on a free

What's the story?

The current Chelsea strike force reads - Michy Batshuayi, Alvaro Morata, Diego Costa... and that's it. Considering the utterly acrimonious way in which Costa has been behaving vis-a-vis both Antonio Conte and Chelsea as the club itself, that leaves essentially two "proper" strikers.

This limits Conte's options for changing the formation to a striker-team when required considering the packed schedule he is faced with now that he is in the Champions League and the club's (and the owner's) natural inclination of doing well in Europe.

Having loaned out, or sold, most of the more promising strikers in their squad Conte is said to be unhappy with the attacking talents at his disposal. It is at this time that we understand former Chelsea target Antonio Candreva's agents, M/s P&P Sport Management, have offered Giuseppe Rossi's services to Conte and Chelsea.

In case you didn't know

The New Jersey-born Italian Rossi is, of course, a graduate of the Parma and Manchester United youth academies and represented the Red Devils in 5 senior games but his time there was curtailed by a knee injury that has haunted him throughout his career.

In fact, the longest spell he's enjoyed at a club was with Villareal where he played 192 games in 6 years and bagged a rather impressive return of 82 goals. It was around this time too that he became a regular in the Italian national squad and he made 29 appearances, scoring 7 times for the Azzurri.

The heart of the matter

Rossi's talent has never been in doubt, it's just his depressing injury record that means the 30-year-old has never hit the heights he seemed destined for; a repetitive Cruciate Ligament injury has kept him out for 557 days, 115 days, 234 days and 182 days on four separate occasion - the last one is current and he is expected to recover by October 9th this year.

Even despite these injuries though whenever he's been on the field of play he's shown his class - he scored 6 goals for Celta Vigo last season, but the latest iteration of the ACL injury has seen Vigo let go of the Italian, and he is available on a free at the moment.

Considering that he is a free agent, the transfer window restrictions are not in place and hence the interest from his representative's side.

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The talent has never been in question:

If the Chelsea medical team can keep him fit, this might actually be a decent move!

Author's Take

The likelihood of this transfer actually happening: 1/10