Roma wants Spurs defender Vlad Chiriches on loan

The transfer rumors don't stop just because it's Thanksgiving in the USA. Batcountry-ish rumors have been coming out lately about Vlad Chiriches, and now a new one has emerged from the Italian sports media. Italian paper repubblica.it is reporting today that Roma would like to secure the services of Vlad the Lad on loan, beginning in January.

The report, naturally, is in Italian so I'm relying on Google Translate to get the gist of what's happening. Here's the most important paragraph:

E il nome è quello di Vlad Chiriches, romeno del Tottenham vicinissimo al club giallorosso anche la scorsa estate. Ieri è volato a Londra per conto della Roma il manager italiano del giocatore, Pietro Chiodi, incaricato di chiudere il trasferimento nella capitale del difensore per gennaio.

I'm not going to do a straight translation because, well, I'm not Italian. The gist of is that Roma is not exactly thrilled with the performances of Caligari loanee Davide Astori, and Newcastle loanee Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa is out with an injury. Roma Director of Football Walter Sabatini is targeting Vlad to help shore up their defense. The article claims that Vlad (more likely his agent) is amenable to a move, but that Roma still needs to get Tottenham to agree.

This doesn't seem that far-fetched. Despite his good performance last weekend at right-back, Vlad is clearly not in Pochettino's immediate plans at the center-back position, and it wouldn't surprise me if he's a January casualty. Italy seems like the kind of league where Vlad could not only get minutes, but actually thrive, as it's a bit of a slower-paced league. I'd expect Vlad to be the subject of a number of transfer stories from now until the window closes at the end of January, 2015.