AC Milan have enquired about the situation of Caleb Okoli, who plays for Leicester City, while other centre-backs have also been offered on loan.
Since Milan might be playing with a three-man backline fairly regularly this season, Igli Tare has been looking at signing another centre-back for the defence. Currently, Matteo Gabbia, Fikayo Tomori, Strahinja Pavlovic and Koni De Winter are the only players for the role.
The youngster Davide Bartesaghi could perhaps be included as well, but Max Allegri wants the strongest squad possible and that’s why a centre-back signing is being evaluated. According to Corriere dello Sport, many agents have already proposed their clients on loan.
Okoli an option
In addition to the loan offers, however, Milan have also enquired about the situation of Okoli, who left Atalanta to join Leicester City for €14m last summer. There are no proper negotiations between the clubs for now, though.
Albeit with Nigerian heritage, Okoli was born and raised in Vicenza, which means he wouldn’t take up a ‘foreign’ slot on Milan’s squad list. However, he would take the final ‘association-trained’ slot on the Italian side of the squad lists.
The pursuit of a centre-back will likely depend on sales, which we discussed in our latest bonus article on the mercato.
Im all for more Italians in the squad but we should have been going for quality (eg Udogie / Leoni / Buongiorno) rather than quality.
Don’t want to just pad the squad with substandard players. This guy Okoli is cr@p
Darn auto correct lol.
Should say Quality not Quantity
What made Leoni quality?
His price
Get Kiwor ASAP .
Okoli makes alot of sense since he will count as a association trained player. Loan with option to buy would be perfect in order to evaluate him for one season.
Okoli is 24 and can still develop. It would also give us 5 CBS that all can play together for a long time:
Pavlovic 24
De Winter 23
Tomori 27
Gabbia 25
Okoli 24