CM: Inter and Napoli show why Milan must put the signing of a striker above everything else

AC Milan must prioritise the signing of a centre-forward over a midfielder as the example from other Serie A clubs shows, a report claims.

Alberto Cerruti writes for Calciomercato.com that Daichi Kamada will arrive on a free transfer from Eintracht Frankfurt and then Ruben Loftus-Cheek should also join from Chelsea, with the hope of a discount on the €25m requested by the London club.

However, Milan cannot stop there. Names such as Marco Asensio and Domenico Berardi have been mentioned for the right wing, Davide Frattesi and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic for the midfield plus Marko Arnautovic and Lois Openda for the attack.

Cerruti writes that the absolute priority for Milan should be to sign a true centre-forward who guarantees a certain number of goals isn’t coming after a long injury like Divock Origi, who isn’t a raw talent like Marko Lazetic and isn’t a 34-year-old like Arnautovic.

Olivier Giroud has worked overtime this season but cannot carry the weight of the attack on his shoulders alone, while Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s age seem to have caught up to him, with Origi and Ante Rebic offering very little.

Meanwhile, Napoli won the Scudetto thanks above all to their top scorer Victor Osimhen, while Inter got 40 goals from their three forwards, Lautaro (21), Lukaku (10) and Dzeko (9), more than double the 15 scored by the three Milan forwards.

The consequence of all this is also the total goal difference (today 28 to 19) in favour of Inter, which determines the final placement on equal points in the standings and in direct matches.

Therefore, new signings are welcome in all departments, but the priority must be the search for new strikers, as a plural and not the singular.

Tags AC Milan Lois Openda

13 Comments

  1. So we have to sign so many players with limited budget which means we can only get mediocre talent? Lets not forget that too many new signings is counterproductive, where is Chelsea now?

  2. We do need a striker and they’re not cheap so this is why we need to focus.

    If we sign Kamada then that needs to be it for midfield.

    We don’t need a defender.

    Maldini played in squads where players played across multiple positions in defence. Panucci played RB and LB and a 40 year old Costcurta played across the back four including LB.

    I don’t know where we are getting this idea we need 2.5 players for every position (apart from the media and fans and agents demanding constant new signings).

    We need a CM (Kamada check), a RW and a CF and that is it. And getting the squad down to 23 and a core of 16-17 will be worth more than any signings because the players will actually get to play.

    Probably the big difference between inter and Milan this season (other than the head to heads) was I’m not sure Inzaghi decided to rotate 8 players against so called “weaker” teams. If only rested a couple of players in their 6:0 drubbing of Verona.

    Pioli needs learn from his mistakes this season or else no amount of signings will help.

    1. Why around 2.5 players per position? Simple, divide 25 (standard squad size) by 11 (number of positions) and you will get 2.2727.

      Obviously, not all 25 are starting level, roughly 7 of them are mostly squad filler for worst case scenario. 11 are starting level, the remaining 7 shall be dependable for backup and rotation.

    2. 23 is a little extreme IMHO.

      I think 25 is ideal, as UEFA allows every team to register 25 players max, and hence it should be a good guide. Following this would also means that no awkward moment where we must leave out our players for the UEFA list.

    3. You seem to have a hard time understanding that the world is changing every day and so does football. Nothing stays the same.
      You are stuck in the past, keep talking about 40 year old Costacurta playing as a full back. You do that in todays football and one of these wingers will start attacking that 40 year old embarrassing him.
      Also, when Costacurta played out of position, as a full back, he was surrounded by world class defenders like Maldini, Nesta, Stam or Cafu who could cover for him. None of our current defenders can even shine the shoes of those players. You could hide a player playing out of position in those times, can’t do that today in a high pace, press all over the field and counter attacking football.
      Football was much slower at that time and they didn’t play every 3 days between club and NT games. Thats why clubs have bigger squads today. Also is more about quality than quantity and we lack quality big time.
      Milan didn’t have a poor season in serie A because of a few games where Pioli rotated, we had a poor season because we lack quality. None of our current midfielders would start for Inter.
      We don’t need any midfielders besides Kamada? Really?
      First of all Kamada is an AM not a CM. Milan needs a CM to replace Kessie who wasn’t replaced from last summer. We also need a CM who will cover until Bennacer comes back, which wont happen before new years.
      We need a back up LB, back up LW, not 1 but 2 strikers, We need a starting RW and another creative mid who will back up Kamada.
      If you wanna compete in 3 competitions and don’t wanna run your players into the ground you need quality back ups and not to try to fit a square peg thru a round hole.
      Yes, we shouldn’t have more than 25 players but they need to be quality players. We have 30 players but at least half of them are mediocre and need to be off the team.
      Time for you to leave the past in the past and adapt to the new way of football

  3. Signing a forward who can be a real goalscoring threat would do wonders to us. Consider the statistic of penalty given to us:

    20/21: 20
    21/22: 8
    22/23: 4

    This dwindling numbers alone showed that we lost some kind of offensive threat after Zlatan is no longer the main focal point of the attack. I love Giroud and he is VERY underrated and merchant of godly goals, but IMHO, for some reason he doesn’t threaten the opponent’s defence like how Zlatan did.

    And for a Scudetto challenging team, a very reliable and fit main striker is a must. Giroud ran out of gas in the middle of the season, especially after that long arse World Cup, in which he led France to the final. Luckily, he found second wind and finished the season strongly.

  4. I dont see the need for a striker. If Giroud manages another season like this one, and i dont see why he wouldnt, Milan will be golden. Better players behind him means more balls for him and we all know he can score
    All we need is a good deputy thats where Origi and Rebić failed this season.. They took a gamble on Ibra getting well and it didnt pay.
    You know Milan in our “poor” season has the 3rd best atk of the league. 61 goals tied with atalanta. last season they got 69 goals

    1. Giroud can start as a main striker but hopefully there will be a younger lad challenging him for the #9 shirt already next season. Scamacca perhaps? I don’t care who as long as he scores +10 goals in 2023-24.

      Giroud did well enough considering the heavy workload and lack of service (especially from the right side) but what we need is a reliable 2nd striker to give Giroud rest and squeeze more out of him (due to actual competition for the starting eleven).

      1. wouldnt mind Scamacca on loan to buy. That would kinda be ideal..
        Yeah, those 10 goals from a deputy are crucial.

        1. My thoughts exactly. Scamacca on loan with option to buy sounds a great deal at this point. Either it works out great and we have our striker for the next years or we move on to the next candidate next summer with more money to spend on other positions this summer. A no-brainer really.

  5. Not sure why the goals are the real issue. We’re the third most prolific team in Serie A (only Napoli and Inter have scored more than us as the article.cherry picked). I think that the fanbase thinks we’re not scoring because we dont have an established striker/s scoring all the time. Our goals are more spread out amongst players. The trick to our formation is actually our unpredictability. Our mids as well as lone striker score goals. Napoli is heavily Oshimen dependent, they were lucky this year he was injury free because it’s a massive drop in terms of goals from him vs the rest. Inter play a 2 striker system so likely the goals will come from them. Our system involves our wings, cam and strikers sharing the spoils. Even with that said,.adding quality certainly wouldn’t hurt

  6. We need to focus not an st but someone in attack that can score like leao… So the positions are rw st but in general someone who scores that said it’s probably expensive but we have to do it even with limited budget let’s say we get Kamada right and we have 70 80 mil from only speculate articles we are going someone that scores with confidence 15+ goals every season or multiple seasons like JONATHAN DAVID just get him then try loan deal to younger player and see if he learns fast or not or even from the primavera at last sell rebic ballo toure kjaer florenzi messias gabbia pobega any of these names and put the money in January window

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