According to reports, Republic of Ireland striker Evan Ferguson is close to a loan move to Italian giants AS Roma.
With uncertainy over his longer-term future at Brighton & Hove Albion, where he's fallen down the pecking order, a switch to a club and city of Roma's scale would be more than intriguing should the transfer eventually get over the line.
On this week's RTÉ Soccer Podcast, ex-Ireland winger Keith Treacy and former Under-21 international Richie Towell discussed some of the transfer news involving Irish players such as Aaron Connolly joining Leyton Orient in League One, and Mark Travers' apparent impending move to Everton.
But it's Ferguson and a possible switch to Serie A that is the most eye-catching and Treacy considered the pros and cons that would be involved in moving to the pressure cooker that is the Italian capital's best-supported club who are now managed by former Atalanta head coach Gian Piero Gasperini.
"If Evan does end up going on loan to Roma, it would be a sensational move for him. It's a melting pot of pressure over there," he said.
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"We speak about players going away from England and going away from the limelight. This is not going away from the limelight, this is staring straight into the fire, this one.
"The manager, Gasperini, is the sort of manager, if he was managing Belvedere up in Fairview, I'd want to go up and play for him. He's just that type of manager.
"He gets you onside. He reminds me a little bit of (Giovanni) Trapattoni, he just has a little bit of an aura about him and you want to run through brick walls for him and looking at what the Atalanta team did for him, he's obviously a very good tactician and an extremely good man-motivator."
Treacy pointed out that Gasperini often utilised a 3-4-2-1 formation to good effect at Atalanta, who he led to Europa League final glory last May in Dublin, and if that is the formation, Ferguson would have a challenge to get a start in the lone striker role given the presence of Ukrainian centre-forward Artem Dobyk.
"You can't really see Evan playing off the left or playing off the right. He wants to be through the middle," he said.
"They've got a Ukrainian boy there, Artem Dobyk, who's a decent player so it's not like Evan goes there and he plays and everything is going to be rosy in the garden. It's going to be really difficult for him to break into that team.
"The likes of Pablo Dybala, (Stephan) El Shaarawy, (Lorenzo) Pellegrini the Italian international, there's a really high standard of attacking players there.
"Evan's only 20 years of age so if he goes to Roma and doesn't play a lot of games and comes back, it wouldn't be the end of the world.
"But he's only played eight Premier League games for West Ham last year, he didn't score any goals and from an Irish point of view I look at him and think we need you fit and firing for this World Cup campaign and these World Cup qualifiers coming pretty soon. That's from a selfish standpoint.
"From an individual standpoint for Evan, it would be brilliant for him to go to Rome to get that experience and play under a brilliant manager. But you don't want to go there and play a handful of games and not score goals."
But he also pointed out that there could be a challenge adapting to life in other country such as learning new language and integrating into another dressing room.
"At 20 years of age, that would have gobbled me up. I wouldn't have survived in a dressing room that doesn't predominatly speak English and has no English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh lads around for me to bounce off," said Treacy.
"It would be a learning curve for Evan. I'm not sure how many 20-year-olds could take that sort of stuff in their stride but Evan seems to me like he could do it."
Meanwhile, Towell, who also played for Brighton at club level, said the fact that Ferguson is even contemplating a move to such a big club like Roma, with far more pressure than at the Seagulls, speaks highly of his character.
"If he does make the move, it probably tells you a little bit about his personality as well," he said.
"Listen, everybody knows that footballers have egos but it's different having an ego and having the courage then to go and be like, 'I can go to Roma and be a success'. So it will tell a little bit about him as well."
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