Despite the fact that he started AC Milan’s first game of the season against Torino on Saturday night, Ismael Bennacer can leave the club before the window shuts for the right offer.
Calciomercato.com report that Bennacer’s future ‘remains a puzzle’ as we head into the final part of the summer transfer window. Paulo Fonseca named him in the XI against Torino but he didn’t shine, and the words from Zlatan Ibrahimovic about Manu Kone add fuel to the exit talk.
Bennacer was not inadequate in his 59 minutes on the pitch on Saturday, but surely if Fonseca wants to play with this system all season, the Algerian midfielder will not be able to see the pitch regularly. He does not guarantee the necessary balance, and some say he hasn’t been the same since his injury.
The purchase of Youssouf Fofana was pursued for a long time by Milan precisely to overcome these problems and after two months of negotiations, his arrival at Milanello will inevitably take up a lot of the minutes that Bennacer might have played.
There is a €50m release clause in the former Empoli man’s deal and Milan know that – even accepting a bit below that – they could obtain a large capital gain, as well as a large saving on the salary of €4m net per year.
If he were to depart then Manu Kone of Borussia Monchengladbach is the target to replace him. However, the contacts from Saudi Arabia have never gone beyond simple enquiries and there has been no official offer.
Time is running out for a solution to be found and, although the Arabian market closes well beyond the Italian deadline of August 30, Milan cannot afford to sell him without having the time to find an alternative.
Nobody is going to submit any offer for Benny. Season has already started.
What is the point of posting this type of crappy provocative posts?
To kill the motivation of Benny?
Doubt he reads CM news. Or any football news for that matter.
He’s a talented player and does some things better than anyone else in the squad. Had some good games at AM in the past too.
But issue is whether those things are more important than the other roles we need to play – if we’re saying Fofana and Reijnders are likely the starting pair in midfield then what is Bennacer’s role? And why does he need replacing if he does?
I’d be sad to see him go and I think €50M is a pipe dream, at the moment we’d be looking at only half of that. But I understand we have more midfielders than we have squad spaces for, we have some talented younger guys coming through in Musah and Zeroli, and he might not be a tactical fit with the roles Fonseca is playing.
But if he did go, I don’t see why we’d then spend on Koné whilst we still have RLC, Adli, Pobega and Musah on the books.
Milan has a serious problem with holding to underperforming players too long. Bennacer, Adli, Thiaw and Pobega should all be sold this transfer window.
AC Capital Gain we should be called