Any notion that AC Milan might be in for a quiet final month of the summer transfer window can be firmly cast to one side, according to a report.
Calciomercato.com recall how Samuel Chukwueze officially became a new Milan player yesterday meaning the Furlani-Moncada duo closed the seventh summer signing, constituting a mini-revolution which started from the unplanned sale of Sandro Tonali.
However, seven signings are not enough as at least three more are wanted to give Stefano Pioli a hyper-competitive team. To do so, some sales will have to materialise starting with Ante Rebic who is Besiktas-bound.
Rebic earns €3.5m net per season and has a contract expiring in June 2025, but he will leave on a permanent deal for around €500m, allowing the club to save on the two remaining years of salary.
Divock Origi is another sale that Milan have in mind, so as to free up the €4m net per season he is set to earn until 2026. No concrete offer has arrived for the Belgian and the interest from Saudi Arabia doesn’t tempt him at the moment.
Junior Messias is not part of the plans but his injury somewhat complicates Milan’s plans to sell him. There are negotiations underway with both Beskitas and Torino (an exchange with Wilfried Singo could materialise) but the thigh problem has slowed things.
The situation around Charles De Ketelaere is still nebulous. The attacking midfielder would be allowed to leave both permanently and on loan in order to try and raise his value, yet no concrete proposals have arrived.
Fode Ballo-Touré will leave too. Fulham offered €4m with Milan accepting, but the Senegal international rejected it because he is pushing for a stay in Serie A. Bologna are keen but they want a loan with option to buy and for the Diavolo to cover part of the salary.
Alexis Saelemaekers is no longer deemed a big part of the plans either given the signings of Christian Pulisic and Samuel Chukwueze, so intermediaries are at work to try find an offer to take him away from Milan.
As much as I was a firm believer in cdk when he joined, I think it’s best for both parties that we go our separate ways, I don’t see him fitting into a position nor playing well worth the money we spent
We have a problem in our AM position. I think Pioli prefers to have a defensive-minded AM that would not be afraid to press the other team or drop deep to pick and carry the ball.
Calha did that, Kessie and Krunic did that with less impact on attack but with more impact on the defensive side. Diaz and CDK could not make it work.
Our Achiles heel is our weakness to set up pieces and headers combined with the inability to break closed defenses. This means that all games against relegation teams that park the bus can be a coin toss if the other team manages to score from the set piece. If you add to this a Maignan injury or a Tomori/Kalulu brainfart, it puts a lot more pressure on our team to score… and on AM to create/score goals.
Pulisic, Okafor and Chuk are not 20+ goals players. On paper, our team is better suited to play in CL than in Serie A. A tall physical striker (or AM) is almost a must in Serie A to add pressure to the opposite closed defense and open spaces. It’s a shame that Origi didn’t work out…
In this context, I wouldn’t get rid of CDK (at most a loan). Pioli needs to think hard during this preseason on how to make the AM-s job easier. The only AM-s that didn’t have much pressure to perform were Kessie and Krunic cause nobody expected much from them offensively, they were there to harass and destroy.
On a side note, CDK reminds me of when Honda first joined. In the first 1-2 years he was dispossessed very easily, but later learned how to defend the ball and/or release it quickly and became a lot more efficient in his play
“but he will leave on a permanent deal for around €500m”?? Bro we can buy the half of Man City with that money 😂😂😂
That one raised my eyebrows too – should it have been 50Mill, 5Mill or 500k (or 50p)?
500k. Sadly.
We should wait for an even billion
Pioli style of football is odd not a modern day style. if pioli were to be in England (premiership) I believe he will only be good for teams like Everton, crystal place and the rest. Nothing more. Wait and see this new players
Getting rid all flop signed last season are big homework for new management . For CDK , he cannot play as AMF , even if he want there is pulisic & romero play better than him in AMF , in RW that CDK hard to compete with samuel chukwu that have high speed & good drible , in CF he will compete with giroud & okafor ( i doubt he can win compete with this two ) . No hope for CDK playtime in ACM even as depth , even with few loss i think better ACM recoup as much as they can from CDK and use that money buy striker that can replace giroud
Agreed and agreed. As I said for many times now, he simply doesn’t have a fixed role in this ‘new’ Milan. Our most expensive signing after that Chinese fiasco simply just can’t a bench warmer. And for the kid’s own goodness, he might be useful and blossom somewhere else.
Moreover due to the fact that he just signed another midfielder.
We need to go all in on the defensive aspect in August. We are not alright as things stand defense-wise.
Reality is we can’t capital gain from these players.
De Ketelaere is still young and have huge ammortisation so he shouldn’t be sold easily but use as rotation a d hope he will find the way to net.
Saelemaekers is wort at least 20 million but no one will give that much so we should use him this season also.
Ballo Toure? If he continue to insist to stay, put him with spectators also with Origi…
Very stupid if we sell Salad and CDK
Cdk should be loaned out. Regain some confidence or value. He’s clearly not apart of the plans nor should he be at the moment. Romero has surprised me more than anyone. He’s a special talent. But with pulisic chukwueze and okafor I don’t see a place for cdk.
Another silver lining in all this, is that Pioli will have no excuse next season. The expections to deliver throphy(throphies) next season increases with every new signing. We also want entertaining football, we should play beautiful football like we did when we thrashed Napoli 4, for at least 60% of our Serie A games.
The season is long. We should’nt sell Saelemaekers yet. He has a very high work rate especially in pressing, and can be used off the bench in the difficult moments of the season. His skills have also improved over the course of the last season in my opinion.
CDK should be loaned out to a serie A team. If no improvement is shown then he should be sold thereafter.
Origi thank you but just go.
CDK can play as mezzala, or a lone striker. Cover for Reijnders or Giroud.
But CDK only need to have more confident. He just like Leao in his early years at Milan.