Rumour Mongering: Juventus Explore Emre Can Alternatives

According to reports out of Italy, Juventus are taking a close look at Barcelona midfielder Andre Gomes and Sampdoria’s Dennis Praet as potential fallback options should efforts to sign Emre Can on a free transfer fall through.

For Liverpool fans, word of Juventus looking elsewhere could be seen as good news. Or it might not have any impact on him ending up with the Serie A giants. Or it could mean he’ll sign for some other club. Or it could mean nothing.

Still, for whatever it’s worth, Italy’s Corriere dello Sport claim that Juventus have grown increasingly concerned Can won’t end up signing with them and that has pushed them towards laying the foundations for alternate signings.

They don’t, however, claim any insight into what Can’s future holds beyond that Juventus are meant to be concerned. Which leaves us pretty much where we were yesterday and where we’ll almost certainly be tomorrow.

The assumption since last summer has been that Can will move to Juventus on a free transfer when his current Liverpool contract runs down, but he’s been able to sign a pre-contract with them since January and hasn’t.

More than that, he’s recently signalled he won’t be signing anything—with Juventus, with Liverpool, with some other club—until the season ends, and if he has given an unofficial but firm commitment to anyone it hasn’t leaked out yet.

Can is currently out with a back injury but there is a slight hope that he could yet play a role for Liverpool before the end of the current season, particularly if they can get past Roma in the semi-finals of the Champions League.