Terrifying rumors of Jose Callejon departure to Atletico Madrid emerge

Sometimes transfer rumors are fun. Sometimes they make you curl up in a corner, rocking slowly whispering "no" over and over and over and over again. This one falls in to the latter category.

Reports came out over the weekend that Jose Callejon is seriously considering leaving Napoli this summer, with the forward reportedly wanting to capitalize on last summer's interest expressed by Atletico Madrid back in Spain. Il Mattino lead the charge on the report, but other outlets followed it up to varying extents.

Atleti supposedly made on offer of around €18 million last summer that Napoli rejected. It's believed it would probably take at least €25 million to convince Napoli to sell the Spaniard.

Callejon's playing time has suffered some since Manolo Gabbiadini showed up, though that's as much to do with Callejon playing the most minutes of any outfielder in the squad as anything. Callejon started out the season on fire, scoring 8 goals by mid-November, but he's cooled off considerable since, scoring only one goal, and that in a 4-1 rout of lowly Cesena.

Still, aside from a three-week spell of looking tired and adrift, Callejon's been more good than bad of late, despite the remonstrations of some Napoli fans that he's "past it," which is patently ludicrous. Even if his scoring touch has been off, he's been helping the side in other ways, and that's not worth nothing.

Make no mistake: even with the talented Gabbiadini around, losing Callejon would be painful. He's a very talented forward, even if he is a tick out of form, and Napoli wouldn't be where they are now without him in the side. Sure, making a massive profit on him in the transfer market would be nifty, but replacing him won't be easy. It would be a big setback for Napoli to lose him, and replacing him will  be far from as straightforward as plugging Gabbiadini in to the lineup and moving on.