AC Milan and Italy legend Franco Baresi has been discussing the impending arrival of Aaron Ramsey at Juventus calling the move a great coup. “I’ve seen him play. He’s obviously a great player,” he said.
“I think Juve has really landed a great coup there and I’m sure he’ll be able to adapt to Italian football.”
Of course, it is a great coup but Baresi needs to be careful and not gloat prematurely, not every signing works out exactly as you hope for.
Everyone and their uncle was calling the Alexis Sanchez move to Man Utd a great coup and looked what happened there, not only has the Chilean failed to live up to expectations, he has straddled United with a huge £500K a week salary.
Now, I actually think that Ramsey will be a roaring success in Italy but the similarities with Sanchez are striking, the Welshman is reportedly going to be on a huge £400k a week wage, a whopping £20,800,000 per year and at 28 years of age, will have no sell on value.
I really do want it to work out for Ramsey, he was a great servant for us and I do not hold him responsible for how this has all ended and of course, the Italians have every right to be over the moon at signing him for free but, some perspective is required.
Italian club football is very different to the Premier League and that may well suit Ramsey, the chances are he will have more time on the ball and with Ronaldo up front will have a world-class outlet to feed the ball to, so on paper, it looks like a match made in heaven but so have many high profile transfers in the past that ended in failure.