Youssouf Fofana remains the target that AC Milan want to reinforce the midfield but the management are aware that time is ticking by, and a report has suggested an ultimatum could be put forward.
According to Calciomercato.com, technical director Geoffrey Moncada has reassured the agents of Fofana that he wants to strike an agreement with Monaco over a transfer fee despite the long and drawn-out negotiations, and that he has not yet concretely moved for alternatives.
Despite the ‘tensions’ between clubs in recent days Fonseca is the first choice, but latest offer of €17m in total has not yet been deemed adequate by Monaco, who are ‘irritated’ by the fact that Milan have reached an agreement on the contractual terms with Fofana well in advance.
During this week, the Rossoneri will present a third offer that will not exceed €20m in total and this is the maximum amount that the directors want to allocate for a player who – from next February – will be free to sign with whoever he wants on a pre-contract.
Milan’s philosophy remains the same: they are not interested in participating in auctions for a target. Monaco tried to open one for Fofana but the player did not accept West Ham, who then signed Guido Rodriguez on a free. This week there will be a turning point, one way or the other.
I usually don’t approve managment’s actions and the way they lowball every offer for player, but in this case its clear that Monaco are trying to make auction for Fofana and get as much money as possible. Problem is that if no one offers 35mil for him(and only PL clubs are dumb enough to pay that fee when they can get him for free next summer) then Monaco will be forced to sell him by the end of mercato. And thats the card Moncada is playing on
You usually don’t “approve”? Tell me, who is reaching out to you from the Ac Milan management to get the final “approval” from the ever so esteemed Salmy? is it Ibra, or maybe its Furlani? hahah LOL
What an irrelevant reply… do you not get enough attention or something,
Its not my problem that you dont get much attention IRL so internet became only place that you can be “relevant”. If you knew some english you would understand what I meant.
On a site full of non-native English speakers you are gonna parse Salmy’s words that fine?
* Your question mark is in the wrong place.
* Ac Milan is AC Milan
* “approval” should be italicized not in quotes
* comma needed after maybe
* hahah is not a word
* LOL is what my 8 year old types to me when I make a dad joke.
Or you could choose civility with the assumption of good intent and contribute meaningfully.
I hope you will choose the latter.
Bro, this isn’t a letter to Havard university or Cambridge. You’re reading too much into it. Italicize work mostly on MS Word.
Here comes English teacher from Harvard University 🤓
You forgot to ‘insert the fact that your kid played soccer’
Shhhhh……rimp
Salami what??????
Management are inadequate at any negotiation and time has proven this.
So Salami what are you trying to say?
Milan are embaressing themselves. And teams are maybe not going to be wanting to sell players our way or buy our players if we continue like this.
Well very few wants to buy our players anyhow so that’s no big change…
In this case the management are right not to pay too much when Fofana only have one year left.
Not 1 year. Half. 6 months.
I think 20m is more than fair enough, if not they can keep him.
Any club that want to throw away money just because they can, by all means go ahead and buy him.
6 months left? So you’re saying Monaco made a contract with him that ends in the middle of the season? Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah right. 😀 😀 😀 😀
20 million is a reasonable and fair offer for a player in the last year of his contract. What’s the issue? Fofana only wants us. Either they sell or lose him for 10-15 million in the winter or free in a year.
Monaco have no other options. He made it clear with West Ham that he doesn’t wanna join 2nd rate teams.
Real and Barca stacked, Atletico are signing Gallagher, Man Untd gonna get Ugarte after PSG signed Neves from Benfica. Aston Villa, City, Liverpool stacked, Arsenal about to sign Merino. Juve and Inter don’t need him. Roma doesn’t have money since they are at -80M about to sign RB and CB.
Other than these 3 teams: Napoli, Tottenham, Bayern(?), I don’t see anyone competing for Fofana. He also said he wanted UCL so Napoli and Tottenham should be out?
Fulkrug sure wanted a 2nd rate team 😂
Not sure what Fullkrug has to do with Fofana, but did you think that maybe he also wanted to be a starter? Fofana knows he’s going to be a starter at either club, so when comparing apples to apples Milan is the better choice.
Milan is ALWAYS the better choice. Even for Fullkrug who only went to WH because Nagelsmann told him he’d have a better shot at the national team if he played at the PL.
But hey, hopefully he enjoys CL-free football.
Absolute striker graveyard is West Ham, he’ll be on the bench behind Antonio by Christmas like every other one they’ve signed in the last decade
So why would Milan have been the better choice for Fulkrug IF he wanted to start AND wants a chance to make the national team, and will make more $$$ and will play in the best league in the world?? He played in UCL – just went to the finals. So for him the draw was starting and making the national team – and the $$ didn’t hurt. And who’s to say next season West Ham won’t make UCL and we won’t? Your reasoning doesn’t make much sense.
Whether competitors exist or not. There will never be a competition when the player only wants to sign with one club. How does Monaco can open an auction when the players only give them two options: 1. He stays for another year; or 2. He signs with Milan this summer. This might be the reason behind Monaco’s anger.
Instead of wasting time on Fofana (who isn’t even a true DM btw), we should have targeted other DMs and made offers for them.
Heck Hojbjerg was a better DM than Fofana and we could have gotten him for less than 15M€.
Hojbjerg deal is for 20M…i don’t think that is great value. I think they want two way players to play in the pivot (like tonali and kessie) who are both 8s unless they want to move to a 4 3 3 …their heatmaps are identical to how fofana plays…
But Fofana always played with a more defensive player than him even in a double pivot (Camara, Tchouaméni,…) and even played in front of Kanté. He is not as defensive as people think. He is not that close to Kessie.
Hojbjerg did also play in a double pivot and Marseille got him for a loan with option to buy for 14M€.
“Hojbjerg heads to Marseille on a season-long loan with a purchase obligation next summer. Initial reports suggested a €13.5 fee, but Alasdair Gold suggests there are various performance-related clauses that could kick the total fee as high as €20m”
I think hojbjerg is a good player so I’m not saying he is a bad option depending on his salary. But fofona fits the defending high up the pitch style a bit better I think.
Nothing is cut and dry, the risk exist that an appetizing deal might come from a more prestigious team and blindside us in the process. Milan does not have the same pulling power anymore and should learn to close deals quicker. We are in this situation because Man U and A Madrid started sniffing around. Haggling over a 1million here or there is a waste of time. JZ’s will lasted only so long…when Man U showed up he jumped, UCL or not…
Thats why they are keep contact with the agent
Haggling over a million or so, maybe – but haggling over 5-10M is a significant difference
i would prefer a real dm like cardoso i wont be against fofana but milan has to accept that monaco wont go for a lower price and if ac milan dont want to pay over 20 million then we could look for other options like andre, cardoso or richard rios
The option of him staying and helping them finish high in the table to qualify for Europe is worth more than 20 million to them. They need 35 million to secure a viable option to reach their goals in Ligue 1 with other clubs spending. So they are within their right to ask the price they wanted because he is bringing that value to their team for the season. I don’t think they will accept 20 million and when he is free other clubs will get involved, offer higher signing and agents fees, then we will be empty handed. 35 million to have him for a season in which our team lack his profile is a fair price.
How can you guarantee to get a top performance from a player whom you blocked from making the transfer they wanted? That’s a mighty large gamble….
Well he’ll have to play well if he wants to play for the national team and to earn his next contract! Think what a solid job Kessie did for us before he left (to throw his career away)
I agree with your analysis except for the conclusion that he’s worth 35M to us. You are right that Monaco is calculating that his value on the squad for his last contract year is greater than receiving 20M. It’s the same thing we did with Donnarumma. But I disagree that we should pay 35M for him, when there were and are good DM options for less. We could have gotten Renato Veiga or Hoijberg in the mid-teens.
Having Giroud on one leg in the CL and lacking a complete midfield had Inter run circles around our entire midfield and backline since Kessie left, including the semi finals and last season. It also cost us since we dropped out of the CL last year. If Juve didn’t get penalized, us finishing in 5th would have cost us 50 million euros, by not achieving the group stages and making less by finishing lower in the standings domestically. Lacking CL football might have cost us the renewal of Leao.
So if we intend to advance one round or two in the CL this season nad compete for top 4 after Roma, Napoli and Juve reinforced their squads, with Inter as well, after loosing 15 goals from Giroud, plus his chemistry with Pulisic since Morata won’t get a preseason with him and the rest of the team, 35 million on a profile we are lacking is a fair price. Not having him, a player that plays with Maignan, Theo and is reliable as well as experienced at a young age will cost us.
We can’t sign someone to shore up the transition and recovery phase of our midfield with inexperienced prospects. For 35 million, you won’t get better than Fofana. We needed a player like him 3 windows ago. You can’t cheap out on quality. He could sell for 50 to 55 with an additional year. His salary demands will raise when he is available for free if he plays well again. His agent will ask for a higher fee. That move will be dead in the water.
This one is a good move from management. Hope they have a deal with his agent too if Monaco decide to keep him for a season.
But, there is one Worst scenario if Fofana stay, play very, very well, then many club after him in February, then the agent decide to do the auction. Like Zirkzee’s.
Monaco “irritated”? Why? This is a standard procedure: agreement with the player first, then agreement with the club.
No it’s not. It’s frowned upon to go to the player first. Why? Because a club might not want to sell him
Get a good dm already. Fofana shfofana, doesn’t matter. This team needs a good dm since we don’t have a proper one.
Man U are about to get involved in this one now they’ve binned off Ugarte as a target (from The Athletic).
If we really want this to happen we are going to have to get serious.
Furlani and Moncada are one huge big joke. They have been messing in the transfer market for the last 3 months and have shown they are incompetent, stupid and clowns.
The only thing we have seen in the last 3 months is that people like you have learning absolutely nothing. You learned nothing from last season and even after you were reminded of the need to be patient, you couldn’t keep your trap shut. Management have signed two of their three main targets, Zirkzee is the only one who got away. Fofana is the other main target. Monaco are welcome to lose him for nothing.
20m euro + bonus 2-3m euro if fofana play on CL with ACM are fair offer , his market value 30m euro. If monaco insist 35m euro jusr fast move to other target