Giorgio Chiellini makes Sunderland transfer admission to Roy Keane
Sunderland almost signed Italian icon Giorgio Chiellini while under the stewardship of Roy Keane as revealed on the latest episode of The Overlap.
Throughout the years, Sunderland have had their fair share of interesting transfer links but Chiellini might top all of them to date.
There are very few defenders who come close to the legacy that Chiellini had in football but his career nearly panned out very differently with the Italian claiming he considered a move to Wearside.
Following their promotion back to the Premier League under Keane, the Black Cats looked to strengthen their squad and Chiellini says he considered joining the club purely because of the Irishman.
In an episode of The Overlap, Chiellini said: “Imagine, from Juventus, I was thinking about coming to Sunderland. It was really just for him (Keane).”
Sunderland have had several other incredible transfer misses
Everyone remembers the famous clip in the Netflix series where a certain Zlatan Ibrahimovic is mentioned as part of the club’s recruitment plans. There have been many links like that in the past where you have to wonder how things would have panned out if they happened.
Virgil Van Dijk, Diego Maradona, Paul Scholes and even Kevin De Bruyne are among several other players to have been linked with the club in the past and it’s fair to say they all went on to have successful careers (SI Nation).
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but can you imagine a Sunderland side with some of the names mentioned? Mind-blowing.
Many, myself included, would argue that Van Dijk and De Bruyne are the best players in the world in their position.
To think that the Black Cats had the opportunity to sign them before they made their name known to the world is a concept difficult to grasp.
In other Sunderland news, Ahmed Abdullahi has been pictured training on Tuesday (29 October) as the Sunderland striker looks to recover from injury.
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