Manchester United are holding regular talks with Joshua Zirkzee’s agent in the hopes of reaching an agreement on the contract and commissions for the Dutch striker, meaning Milan must act quickly to close a deal.
As highlighted by Calciomercato.com, the Premier League side do appear to be serious about the Dutch forward who is not getting any minutes at Euro 2024 under Ronald Koeman.
The player does not want his future to be finalised until after the tournament, where the Netherlands are set to play England in the round of 16.
Zirkzee was brought in to replace the injured Brian Bobbey after not originally being picked in the squad, but he has not played at all yet with Memphis Depay and Wout Weghorst above him in the pecking order.
Milan have made it clear to Bologna that they will pay the €40m release clause on July 1, whilst Man Utd have been more focused on striking a deal with agent Kia Joorabchian who wants €15m in commissions.
That figure is far too high as far as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Geoffrey Moncada and Giorgio Furlani are concerned. Milan are still the favoured choice for the player, but if Man Utd make headway with the agent then the situation could get away from the Rossoneri.
You would think that a UCL team that needs a striker for at least three seasons would have been faster to close a deal. That management is so disruptive.
No one’s “celebrating the compulsive liars” as you called RedBird on Maldini post but could the reason they haven’t closed the deal yet have anything to do with Kia? Or Zirk? Or both
Like I said, they’re looking for a striker for three years at least. We can’t even close a deal with a guy that didn’t play one minute at the Euro and that Manchester United considers as a potential backup. That’s embarrassing as usual.
RedBird only bought the club in 2022 and have had one mercato. This is the first year they’ve been looking for a starting striker so it’s not like they’ve been searching high and low and coming up empty handed for years.
What does it have to do with Redsh!t? You think Jerry cares about a striker? Furlani and Moncada are here for years.
Oh okay 😂 You’re ratting on RedBird so much I assumed that’s who you meant. But you detest Furlani and Moncada too – cool got it 👌.
Maybe Zirkzee and his ransom-seeking agent are taking time to make a decision, or have subscribed to the 15 mln fee demand. Maybe after the Euro tournament ends with 0 minutes for Zirkzee, a deal will be easier to reach. Or maybe the Milan managment has figured out that Zirkzee has still to learn how to shoot the ball on target.
@Bartholomeo Then here comes a question, is it worth paying so much money for him and agent, if he didn’t even play a minute at the Euro and mediocre United wants him only as a backup player? Not to mention dealing with consequences of paying agent a huge fee (other will want it as well in the future) just to get an average player?
You should always look from both sides at situation. They know Zirkzee is not some wonderkid, just an average player with some potential to be a good league striker, but not candidate to win Ballon dOr. Therefore they don’t want to pay ridiculous money for him. If agent won’t step down with commission requirements, they’ll probably sign up someone else and that’s a good decision, not being “embarassing”.
Indeed.
It’s embarrassing because they wasted the whole summer waiting for Taremi to end with Jovic last year and they didn’t learn anything. It’s embarrassing because they discover (again) at the last moment that the agent wants money even if there are reports that Milan follows Zirkee since January. It’s embarrassing because they’re cheap like with Thuram last year. It’s embarrassing because while they’re calmly waiting for Zirkee or his agent to take a decision, other clubs are moving on the market.
Agree – we’d be dumb to give in to these crazy demands. It sets a precedent – but apparently it’s just more embarrassing behavior.
@Bartholomeo I see your point, but how do you know all this? From press gossip? Exactly. It’s like Zlatan said on the last interview (and it’s nothing really surprising): big clubs don’t just chase one player, they have a shortlist of scouted players for each position and they decide which one at the moment is more suitable in terms of skills/availability. For sure they’ve scouted Zirkzee for months, but also they scouted 5 other strikers that they are seriously considering.
And for sure last year they didn’t just suddenly “discover” Jovic or Taremi, but they had it on the shortlist for months and just waited to make the right decision. Or maybe here it’s like with Donnarruma and Maignan situation – no one knew till the last minute what move Milan will make (which caused a lot of criticism for months), but at the end turned out that Maignan deal was closed already long time ago so they didn’t care about Donnarruma anymore.
Not to mention 2 more factors with Zirkzee. First is that his release clause is valid from 1st July, so what did you expect them to do? They have to wait till 1st July, that’s the contract. Maybe deal with agent is already done and they only wait for date to formalize it. And second factor is that mercato is long and maybe they plan some other moves, eg they got information from Saudi Club that they’ll pay the release clause for Leao (almost 200mil) so they could use that money to buy someone better than Zirkzee.
It’s simply much we don’t know because we can only rely on the gossip from Sky Sports or other Tuttosport. Scrapes that journalists have and they have to find out or come up with some stories to make $$$ on people reading this and getting emotional.
@Barthelomeo is speaking the truth…
Embarassing is being kind
According to geniuses here Zirkzee is worth 60m and Milan should just pay up but he cant even displace Weghorst in the Euros
nice 10/10 logic, cant wait for Theo’s agent to come asking for 20m after giving Kia 15m
Overpaying by 15mil only sets you up for bigger headaches down the road of renewal…
I’m OK to move on to other targets unless July 1st rolls around and the situation changes around Zee.