For all the foreign influence on the Premier League, there actually haven’t been that many successful Italians in the English top flight since 1992.
There is an exception to that rule, though, and it has taken place in the salubrious suburbs of west London. Maybe it’s the blue shirt, perhaps it’s the swanky surroundings of Stamford Bridge. Whatever the reason, Chelsea have had a special love affair with players from Italy.
And so it continues with Inter wonderkid Cesare Casadei. The highly-rated Italian midfielder looks set to arrive to bolster Thomas Tuchel’s Blues squad in the coming days.
We’ve ranked all 13 Italians to appear in the Premier League. Not all of them have been successful of course, but some have been truly brilliant.
13. Fabio Borini
Borini has gone on to have an OK career, but he made almost no impact at Chelsea, where he came through the youth ranks.
The forward played just four league games before a loan to Swansea and a permanent move to Parma, which didn’t even earn the Blues a transfer fee.
12. Pierluigi Casiraghi
When a player’s career finishes with a club getting a payout from an insurance company, you can be pretty certain things haven’t gone to plan.
Carisaghi was actually an exceptionally accomplished player. He’d won plenty of shiny pots with Juventus and Lazio, finished as a World Cup runner-up in 1994 and arrived in west London for a substantial £5.4million in 1998.
But just one goal in 10 appearances was followed by a cruciate ligament injury and Chelsea eventually cancelled his contract after 20 months and 10 knee operations. Chelsea received £4million and Casiraghi never played again.
“I have had no help from England, either from club officials or medical staff,” Casiraghi said towards the end of the process. “Anything I have done since my injury, I have had to do alone.”
11. Christian Panucci
The former AC Milan and Real Madrid full-back Panucci arrived at Chelsea on loan from Inter Milan as a replacement for Dan Petrescu. Gianluca Vialli was sacked five games later and Panucci barely got a look in under Claudio Ranieri.
He played 10 times in six months and was shifted to Monaco on loan, before settling at Roma, where he became a club legend and racked up over 300 appearances.
10. Marco Ambrosio
Ambrosio came in as a third-choice goalkeeper in 2003 and, owing to injuries to Carlo Cudicini and Jurgen Macho, ended up playing 12 games, including an error-strewn debut against Notts County…
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