CM: The strategy Milan are using to convince Thuram and the two alternatives

AC Milan really believe that they can win the race to sign Marcus Thuram on a free transfer and they have a strategy in mind, according to a report.

According to Calciomercato.com, the Rossoneri are trying all of their powers of persuasion to try and beat the competition from Paris Saint-Germain to sign Thuram who will leave Borussia Mönchengladbach on a free transfer.

PSG’s offer is higher economically and they have held positive talks with Thuram’s entourage, but Milan’s CEO Giorgio Furlani as well as chief scout Geoffrey Moncada and head coach Stefano Pioli believe they can convince him.

They are trying to convince Thuram mainly with the fact that he would have a greater guarantee of playing time at Milan, whereas in Paris he would inevitably find himself in competition with the many stars they have.

Lionel Messi’s exit plus Neymar and Hugo Ekitike’s potential departures suggest an overhaul though that Thuram could profit from, while PSG have offered €7m net per season including bonuses and a high commission for his agents.

Now, Milan are trying to influence the player’s will because he is tempted by the idea of playing in Serie A. Targeted first by Inter, some Premier League teams and then Atletico Madrid, Thuram has a decision to make.

Paris Saint-Germain moved earlier and with certainly more captivating economic terms, but Milan still do not feel out of the game. Noah Okafor of Salzburg and Gianluca Scamacca of West Ham are potential alternatives.

Tags AC Milan Marcus Thuram

51 Comments

  1. Milan should focus on Ekitike and get him on loan with option to buy, that is a realistic target. And one more experienced striker so we have 3. He is still the same talent he was a year ago, just couldn’t compete with Messi, Neymar, Mbappe. He could with Giroud and he is tall, strong, he is quite fast for his size, only 20 years old, would sure be available on loan with option to buy…I just hope they don’t buy Scammacca only because he is free. He had half of a good season in his entire career, he is almost 25.

      1. Scammacca is not worth 40M, you think because West Ham was the fool to pay that money they can get it all back? 20M€ is what they can get, maybe 25M because the will loan him first. But if he joins Milan this season it will be only because he is FREE, that is the reason he is the main target after Thuram. Yes, if he joins Milan on a loan and they don’t pay for him it is what? FREE. Your comments are always pointless, capt. obvious replies, next time I won’t even reply, waste of time…

        1. In all fairness you didn’t say Scamacca would be a loan in your initial comment. Therefore the implication was that they would sign him permanently and this he would not be free. Anyway, I like your Ekitike idea. It makes perfect sense as he fits the club’s indentikit and Reims surely would be ready to deal given he has a year left in his contract with them, were probably banking on PSG buying him, and they also finished mid-table, so their need for cash is going to be greater. Same for Montpellier and Wahi. Not sure why we’re not taking a closer look at him. I guess we’re just really focused on free agents…

          1. Maybe you are right but I honestly thought it is common sense, that everyone knows no club on the planet will literally give away a player they paid almost 40M€ for, but I guess I was wrong. I’m quite sure they would give him on loan for basically free, only that Milan pays his wages, because his value will only be going down…

            Regarding Ekitike, it says that PSG purchased him because the owner had a deal with owner of Reims, so they bought him and will sell him. He is not going back to Reims. It sounds really strange and I’ve never seen that but it is possible with PSG. If there is a way Milan can get him on loan with option to buy for 30M, which would I think be enough for PSG not to lose money, Milan should jump on it.

        2. Not to pick side, but what you wrote is ambiguous. Loan is not always free. Most definitely West Ham won’t accept free loan formula with option to buy (we already know Milan won’t do any loan with obligation to buy).

          And you clearly stated buy for free. Of course it stirs confution.

        3. It could easily be a fairly high paid loan (8-10mil) and then a buyout clause next year at 15-20 mil.. It would be naive to think we can just swoop in and loan him for free when they can either sell him to italy or maybe to a promoted epl team that easily would be able to fork up more money than us.

          1. Martin, I think that your opinion that another club in Italy wants to sign him is naïve. Which one besides Milan and why? Nobody even needs him from the top teams, others don’t have money for him…
            Yes, they can also sell him to a “newly promoted team” but they aren’t clowns with money, they want to stay in PL, not get someone that scored 3 goals in the whole season and pray he scores more for them. With his goalscoring history, it does not look really good for him. He was horribly bad at West Ham, and he wasn’t anything special before that, half of last season is when he played good. Clubs aren’t lining up to pay big money for him because he will guarantee goals to them, they are lining up to get him on loan and hope he does something so they sign him in the end.

          2. he played 27 matches all season and scored 8 goals in a combined minutes of 1,342’which across all copetitions which would equate to 14.9111 full matches which means he has rrougly scored in every1.863 matches. So you are basically just painting a picture that is usefull for your own narrative.
            The player is an international player and west ham need to get roughly 8 mil back each year in amortisation so infact this would make sense for them to demand 8 mil for a loan.
            Still a 8 10 mil loan with an option to buy at 15-20 mil next year is far more likely than loaning him for free.

          3. Dude, you are counting goals he scored against Larnaca, Silkeborg etc. Proper strikers have 3-5 goals in those types of matches. I think Haaland would score 10 goals against a team like Larnaca. He has managed 3 goals in Premier league, and another 5 against mediocre teams. Wow, what a striker, clubs are flocking to buy him, there is a huge demand. You think a club will evaluate his goalscoring by checking how much he can score against local villager teams? That makes sense. They won’t get over 25M in total for him, if. I would predict around 20M. They will cut their loses and be done with that failure, make room for a new striker. You can want something but the reality is usually different. West Ham doesn’t want to lose money on him, but they will. If they sell him for more, they have done an amazing job and whoever paid that did the opposite. We can agree to disagree but you will see soon…

          4. Apologies, I forgot, he is an international player. 11 matches 0 goals for Italy. Mancini practically gave up on him and Retegui is playing as the striker now. Why? You can make up stuff and count the goals he scored against a Cyprus local village team, but that isn’t the real picture. No, he doesn’t score a goal every 1.863 games but in reality, he scores 1 goal every 3.3 games. Team that is promoted into PL will really care how he does against other PL teams, not teams from Cyprus, Sweden, Albania etc. Those are not a measure because some of them are not even fully professional clubs, but amateurs that work 9-5. Having one goal in over 3 matches at 24 is horrible for a centre forward. If you look at his last 4 seasons, and one was in Serie B, his league average is 9 goals. You people have to be joking and talking that much about a guy that has an average of 9 goals per season in his career. I don’t count Coppa Italia matches against Serie C teams and Conference league qualifiers against policemen, fishermen and more from Cyprus. That is not serious…

          5. So what who he scored against, goals is goals but sure as a dane silkeborg isnt exactly the most impressive team and neither is lanarca but nevertheless its goals scored and is part of his stats.
            You cant be selective in stats,
            He has proven to be able to score goals in italy for a mid to bottom team so he is a fairly decent proven goal scorerr whether you think he is a flop after one season in epl but thats one season in epl not an entire career and he has also missed a lot of games due to injury.
            I will agree though that they propably will lose some money on scamacca if they sell him but a loan at 8 mil and a buyout clause set in between 15-20 mil next year would practically solve that issue of theirs and at that price they could easily loan/sell him to a promoted epl team and i think serie a teams should be able to jump in as well.
            40 – 16 mil is 24 mil and a paid loan at for example 8 mil would open the door to many teams in serie a or for that matter other leagues.
            Either way i doubt we will agree upon this matter but dont expect him to go on loan for free as its not in west hames interest, the model i mentioned could be of interest to them though and would make sense.
            When that is said if we actually were abe to loan him for free all the better.

          6. Proven what? He scored 16 goals last season. How much before that? 8. And before that in Serie B? 9. What is proven there exactly? Can you explain to me how does a player that score 9 goals in Serie B, and 8 goals in Serie season after that, score 16 goals in Serie A a year later and then 3 goals in Premier league is a prove goalscorer? Dude, stop trying to prove something that is not true. A proven goalscorer does not have under 10 goals per season in the league in the last 3 out of 4 seasons, and one of them was in 2nd division. He scored a goal every 3 matches, except for one half of a season, last season the second half. What are you talking about, but honestly? Where is the proven goalscoring ability, please explain. When did he score goals except last season, and only half of it? Cups against villager clubs are not relevant and do not prove you are a great player. Yes, you can pick stats which are relevant and check them. If not, why don’t you include friendly matches? He scored goals in friendlies; you prove his goalscoring ability even better if you add friendlies. Maybe training matches? He scores a lot in training, let’s add that up.
            It would be a disaster if Milan bring him, even on loan for free. I really really hope they will buy anyone else.

            We do not have to agree, but you are claiming something totally ridiculous, that Scamacca is a proven goalscorer. He is not. Definitely not that.

          7. im not gonna waste my time anyfurther on you in this thread as you even admits to not counting some of his stats and then you has the audacity to accuse me of making up things when the numbers i mentioned is corret and its simple math, either you are a troll or an idiot either way good luck with that free transfer of yours.

          8. Of course Martin, I have showed you the exact numbers for that player for his last 4 seasons in the national leagues, not cups. But it is easier to say I’m an idiot than admit that you are wrong and Scamacca is obviously not a proven goalscorer. But even if we go your way and count the goals against villagers and fisherman, he scored 49 goals in his career in 129 matches. Total goals and total matches. That includes goals against Larnaca, Trapani, Juve Stabia, Pro Vercelli, Catanzaro and so on. Colombo would score more goals against those teams. So, his total career numbers put him on 2.63 games per goal. That is a prove goalscorer? Dude, you can try to insult me but you are not right about this, I don’t care what you write. It is obvious from all the numbers, even when you give him goals against teams you would score against, he is still close to 3 games per 1 goal. LOL His numbers do not lie. Easy to check

          9. P.S. No offense to any of those clubs, but you don’t call a young player Messi if he scores a hat trick against an amateur or semi-professional club, it is expected as they aren’t on the same level as fully professional teams where players earn big money and that is their only occupation in life…That is why you shouldn’t count goals against that type of teams, but…

          10. With such argumentation half of messis and ronaldos goals shouldnt count either then ? surely they has played against horrible teams in both spain, portugal and europe and for that matter on on international duty.
            Fact is that you are selective and i were not and you accused me of making up things so thats why i got iritated with you.
            Do i care if you think the player is trash no not at all but he isnt as bad as you made him to be either, Scoring 16 goals for sassuolo isnt a bad accomplishment either its more than giroud managed for us this season, does that mean that scamacca is a better player of course not but still great numbers for a mid to bottom team.

          11. I can understand you got mad, my bad. However, in the last comment I have written his exact career stats, including villagers and he managed to increase his 3.03 matches per goal to 2.63 matches per goal. He is not a proven goal scorer. I can call him an average player, at best. For me anyone that takes over 2 matches to score a goal is average. I think the same about Giroud, he is a necessity because Milan has no money, but he is also average and he should be only backup. But having Giroud and Scamacca as Milan’s strikers sounds like a bad nightmare. I really hope they can get someone who can actually score and guarantee goals. Not someone you have to pray will do something.
            And your point about Messi and Ronaldo is really meaningless, 95% of their goals came against top teams. Ronaldo scored more goals in CL than Scamacca will in his whole career. Remember this, Scamacca won’t even reach Ronaldo’s CL goal tally in his whole career, including goals against fisherman and postman…

          12. Ok fair enough and ill give you i reacted a bit crass, but regardless whether you aknowledge some cups or european ones or not they are still part of his stats and his last season with sassuolo he actually played roughly 1000 minutes less (roughly 11 full matches more) in serie a for a far worse team than milan so i actually believe with a better team around him could excell.
            Would i like us to see some super prolific player in milan absolutely but the funds is most likely not there for that to happen and considering that we will have to deal with other areas of the squad as well its seems highly unlikely to happen. If we want a very prolific goals scorer im affraid that we will have to buy one from one of those leagues you tend to not fully respect. Look at talent on the verge and that may be for example in scandinavian leagues but id prefer scamacca as he at least offer more guarantess in my book than betting on others especially if he can come on a paid loan with a buyout clause next season,

            Well in regard of messi and ronaldo its clearly not because i reckon them as bad players or anything but a great deal of the matches they have played has been against teams that was overpowered by their respective clubs so regardless if they played in the best leagues they were also far from the levels of the team they played in.
            Anyways we dont have to agree on this matterand thats also fine with me.

          13. Why aren’t they trying to sign Balogun? Because there is a transfer fee? He is a realistic target and I’m sure Arsenal would sell him for 20-25M + bonuses if he scores goals and we qualify for CL, easily reachable. Top talent, looks like he will be a 40 goal per season striker, not 9. But instead, we will go for anyone that will not cost money, even though it is a bad signing and doesn’t guarantee anything. The targets literally show that, Milan will sign anyone that is free, as long as they are free. Or better said will try, Aston Villa, Roma etc. will beat them to it because Milan offers less in wages and instead focuses on pulling power of the staff, Pioli and Furlani. 😀

          14. i already replied to that post below but will do it here again

            balogun would be a great transfer but will most likely cost 35-40 mil and if we only have 35-50 mil transfer kit made available its highly unlikely to happen unless the rest of the stop gap solutions comes super cheap.

          15. Apparently not the exact same one so my bad but i think we simply wont cough up with that sort of money in this transfer windoweven thiough id love to see him arrive.

    1. How will you loan Ekitike if his contract is until 2024?
      PSG will buy him. Scamacca is a good target. Id prefer if they land Retegui. Contract until 2024 as well and if Inter is interested he must be ok. They have a knack for getting good arg strikers.
      Thuram seems a naive target even tho i wanted milan to get him. His brother 2

      1. Where did you get the info that PSG will keep Ekitike? They purchased him because it was an option to buy but became mandatory if they were 1st in Ligue 1., something like that, so they can’t back out of the deal. But he was on transfer list already and they offered him to other clubs. Media is writing about this for the past 3 months. I mean even if he had contract until 2024, it isn’t like he can’t get a year extension like a certain Bakayoko did to join Milan on a loan. Right?

        And Scammacca, good for what? I think he is great to waste money on an average player. He played half of last season well, that is it. He will be 25 with half of a season that looked promising. It would be better to buy Arnautovic at 34 than Scammacca at 24, he is a better player and there would be more use for Milan in the next 2 seasons. I don’t understand what do you people see in a player that has been bad and quite useless most of his career. What, he has tattoos so he looks cool? He is not Ibra, he only has the attitude but isn’t 5% of a footballer Ibra was.

        Retegui is much better, about 5 times better striker than Scammacca, but he will be too expensive for Milan. He is an Italy international that scored 2 goals in 2 matches for Italy and he is playing good in his club for the second season in a row. Milan cannot sign players like that with 4M salary cap and 30M transfer cap (and not net, gross). He will most likely join Inter if they sell Lautaro…

        1. Ok i looked it up. Ekitike will stay at PSG, they will buy him for 35M€ and contract until 2027..
          And he is a cheap option for Milan how?
          he is also supposed PSG fan.

          Well im not gonna debate Scammaca with you, waste of time.

          How will Retegui be expensive? Based on what?
          They have some strange contract deal going on but its pretty obvious they want to sell him and the dude wants to come to italy

          1. Can you show me where did you find that he will 100% stay? Maybe I am wrong but I can’t post a link here that says exactly what I said, from PSG post. Because reports that have been coming from PSG for the past 6 months are saying he will be sold this summer, that he is transfer listed. Maybe that is wrong, I am not saying I know if that info is correct, but how do you know that he is staying? Literally every single report says they want to get him out of the club this summer.
            Scamacca is a waste of time, not only discussing him but having him in the team is wasting a year on nothing. Hopefully Milan can skip that extreme failure.
            Retegui will be too expensive because a lot of clubs want him. Literally half of Europe. You think if Eintracht sells Kolo Muani for 80M they won’t offer 35M for Retegui to get ahead of other clubs. I could go on, but I think you get the point. Player are not waiting for Milan, and by what the press said he wants to join Inter, so Milan is not ahead and would probably need to offer more money than other clubs (both transfer and wages) and we all know that is not happening.

          2. According to information from RMC Sport, PSG are open to a departure and this has been communicated to the player’s environment already.
            RMC went on to explain that PSG’s number 44 wants to continue his adventure in Paris because he is convinced that he can do better next season.
            “There were not only negative things in this first experience in a big club”, it can be read in the RMC report. Despite the fact that his priority is to stay at PSG, Ekitike “would not be close to the idea of leaving PSG,” although only if they can move him to a team that “guarantee him playing time and it is based in Europe.”

            I am sure if Milan really wanted him it would be possible.

        2. Retegui is always quoted to be about 18-25 M so he would actually be the cheapest of all (except Thuram). Still don’t get why we don’t go after him.

          1. “The player himself has made clear he prefers a move to Italian football, and to Inter specifically, over joining Eintracht.”
            Because he seems to be more interested in joining Inter, sounds like he is their fan also. Milan would have to offer better terms than Inter, and it won’t happen.

          2. they’re gonna play around thurman for a few weeks then beg for scammaca for a month then in august sign a random dude.
            I dont get it either. Its like Milan has zero scouts in s murica, they havent brought anything from there for years. By the time a player might be on Milans radar its way 2 late.. shame its a good market

          3. Martin I wished I could sad react your comment. I hate how Inter has such a pull on argentine fowatds, Retegui would be amazing in quality and price wise, but oh well.

  2. Almost everyone said that Tielemans chose Aston because of wage and convenient. So why should we expect a different case with Thuram now?

      1. “I don’t know why, but when dad was playing for Juve, I cheered for Milan, when he moved to Barcelona I was cheering for Real Madrid,”

        “I loved Sheva and Crespo, but now I’m only a fan of my Borussia. This is why it will not be a derby for me.”

        Nah. We’re also on the verge on loosing Ndicka per newest report. Let’s see if it makes us loose 3/3. Would be quite funny tbh, management just stated 3 main targets on free transfer, yet losing all of ’em few days later.

      2. “I don’t know why, but when dad was playing for Juve, I cheered for Milan, when he moved to Barcelona I was cheering for Real Madrid,”

        “I loved Sheva and Crespo, but now I’m only a fan of my Borussia. This is why it will not be a derby for me.”

        Nah. We’re also on the verge on loosing Ndcka per newest report. Let’s see if it makes us loose 3/3. Would be quite funny tbh, management just stated 3 main targets on free transfer, yet losing all of ’em few days later.

  3. PSG offering Thuram 7M LOL. NEXT….

    Scamacca is grossly overrated but with our trash budget on loan that’s probably all we can afford.

    Okafor at 20-25M is also too expensive if our budget is only 35M – same scenario as CDK last season.

    35M – we can’t do anything but small signings and loans – too many areas of need.

    1. Dude dont believe low reliable source like GDS,CDS,CalcioMercato,La Republica . There is no way budget only 35m euro. Last season Maldini can use 56m euro to pay CDK,Thiaw cash , activate buy option junior & florenzi , pay loan fee for Brahim,Bakayoko,Aster prank,Dest also pay fee agent for origi free transfer. Thats 56m euro only come from scudetto & group stage CL . Now we are on semifinal CL & 4 th serie A most likely we will get more than 56m euro but gery already make rule dont want to buy 31m euro / player , max 30m euro for one player so ACM will skip if that player have price 31m euro above

    2. What happened to Balogun? He is a dr. of football for Scamacca, would rather risk it on him, he is much younger and also American, so the business muppets can use him to promote Milan there as that is why we would sign Pulisic. He already has more goals than in his career compared to Scamacca 😀 That guy is just trash. Milan will sign him because they have to pay for others and he will come on loan.

      1. balogun would be a great transfer but will most likely cost 35-40 mil and if we only have 35-50 mil transfer kit made available its highly unlikely to happen unless the rest of the stop gap solutions comes super cheap.

        1. Yeah, but I can’t believe everyone is like, “we will sign stopgap cheap players” and be happy about it, after seeing that Milan can’t compete in CL and be competitive in Serie A. Milan did not qualify for CL, only got lucky. It is obvious that won’t work, we already did that. Bright future is ahead, when Milan has to sign leftovers and hope one of them actually does something.
          Milan needs to qualify for CL or that whole project will fall apart. If Theo, Leao and Mike leave, they won’t replace them with 20-25M players. You don’t get lucky every time like we did with Mike low fee and Theo being a Maldini fan and got convinced to join us.

          1. Neither do i but as things stands we will not have a lot of cash made available and it does seem like maldini was unhappy with a 35 mil transfer kit and was than sacked so i wont get my hopes up in regard of us actually spending a lot of cash and it seems lke the modus operandi of redbird will be to keep buying cheap players.
            Personally im of the view that we should buy 3 players of some worth (cm,rw, striker) but then there would still be other areas to cover and i would be beyond surprised if we actually bought 3 25-30 mil players as we might not even get one,
            Ive generally always suported the managements of the club and has been an ac milan fan for 30+years but cardinale pretty much ruined my trust in regard of making any serious squad trasnsfers when we actually earned a bunch of cash this season and should build on that success as its defnetly not guaranteed to happen soon again.

          2. They will rely on Moncada to find cheap replacements with potential to develop into stars. That is the model. Similar to Atalanta. They will keep this group together for this season then next summer start the sale of the bigger stars like Theo and Leao. IMO Redbird are not interested in wining titles but rather just being Profitable – like Atalanta. Same model. Solid team but never win anything because the owner won’t spend to put them over the top then they eventually sell their talent to bigger clubs and the cycle starts over. But Atalanta turn a profit each year. To me this is clear as day and proven right once we unexpectedly won the Scudetto. Last summer limited budget and no $ to reinforce in January – ownership was fine risking missing CL. Then we go to CL semi finals and make an additional 85M in prize money plus 30-40M in additional gate receipts yet our budget is smaller than last season (35M vs 50M) and now we cannot spend over 30M on any player including salary. The writing is on the wall. Only way to buy these players we are linked to (Pulsic) is to start selling our stars. This will happen next summer if not sooner. This is the model and what we are stuck with. Sad

          3. I agree pretty much with everything that you said here Juro im truly disapointed with this management and i expect theo to maybe already getting sold this year maybe mike as well,
            That would allow some more cash but do i think they would invest it all again, absolutely not we will sell players to pay off cardinales loans to elliot management and then buy cheap and young replacements.
            Moncada though is a transfer guru so i quite like him but my hopes has been diminished a lot nevertheless as they can keep saying that they are ambitious but i havent see squat that proves that yet,

          4. Moncada is not perfect, some of his recommendations fail or have yet to shine at Milan such as Hauge, Adli, and CdK.

          5. of course he isnt perfect nobody is but he is nevertheless pretty much a transfer guru in my view but thats nevertheless not necessarily enough considering our funds and limitaions as we need instant upgrades and not just for the future.

  4. I agree with you on this point. I don’t have any problems with the club having a lower transfer budget if the results are bad, but…I am really against the club having no dignity and honour, which already showed with how Boban was handled, and he was 100% right in the end. Same with Maldini and Masara. I mean wasn’t Masara the candidate for Juventus job, the press said he refused and then he got fired 2 weeks later. He couldn’t tell him to take that job? No honour with Cardinale and those geniuses, Furlani is a banker, his knowledge about football is of a fan, nothing more. He is now recruiting players. 😀 And the results we had are the title last year, CL semi finals this year and the budget decreasing. Anyone saying that is how things work is special.

    1. I have supported the club through very bad times but it defently lost some dignity in how it treated maldini and also quite a good point in regard of massara if he actually was offered a job at juventus,
      Decreasing the available funds doesnt make any sense to me either and i find it quite atrocious if we have to deal with a 35 mil transfer kit because we arned 100+mil through cl. Played for a full san siro all season. our sponsor deals was greatly increased and still cardinale seemingly behaves like a miser.

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