Aston Villa and Tottenham chase Juventus' former Chelsea wonderkid

James Shearman

• Updated: 21 Dec 2023 12:30 GMT
• 3 min read

Aston Villa, Tottenham and Brighton are in the race to sign former Chelsea wonderkid Samuel Iling-Junior from Juventus, according to Fichajes.

Iling-Junior spent nine years at Chelsea as a youth team player, before making the move to Turin in 2020.

He broke into Juve's senior squad last season, making 12 Serie A appearances and scoring one goal.

However, he has not kicked on in the 2023-24 campaign, playing just 129 minutes so far.

This has led the aforementioned trio of Premier League clubs to pursue the winger ahead of the January transfer window.

It is reported that Juventus would be willing to accept a fee in the region of £15 million, which Premier League clubs can certainly afford.

Why did Iling-Junior leave Chelsea?

In an interview with The Times, Iling-Junior admitted: “In football you have to be fearless. I have no bad blood with Chelsea.

“They will always have a special place in my heart, I grew up there, I was there from eight years old so of course they tried to keep me, but I just had my head tilted at Juventus.

“Mostly it was because of their history. You look at the amount of trophies they’ve won and the people who have played for the club. It’s not a small club.

“It’s easy to be attracted to a club like Juventus, they breed winners. So it was what I needed to do to become a winner.”