The pursuit of a new No.9 hasn’t been without complications for AC Milan this summer, now seemingly losing out on their initial priority Joshua Zirkzee. Instead of the Dutchman, the Rossoneri are now eyeing Alvaro Morata.
Man Utd have overtaken Milan in the race for Zirkzee as a deal is very close, per the latest reports, and this has forced the Rossoneri to shift their focus. By the looks of it, Spain captain Morata is now the key target for the No.9 role.
According to Corriere dello Sport, as cited by MilanNews, Milan are in talks with Morata’s entourage to convince the striker. Should they reach an agreement with the player, then the Rossoneri will pay the €13m release clause to Atletico Madrid.
In addition to bringing him to join, an understanding must also be reached on the salary. Morata currently earns €6m per season and the feeling is that Milan would offer slightly less. In any case, with the Euros soon over, we could see some concrete movement soon.
Gianluca Di Marzio added earlier today that Zlatan Ibrahimovic himself is working to convince the 31-year-old, helping out the Rossoneri management as expected.
You can check who’s gonna be 32-33 in three years time and you can easily predict our next striker from now.
This is the reason why Morata or Lukaku are best solution for now. If Camarda will be good striker, after two – three years we are okey. And still we don’t know what will be with Jovic. Maybe next summer we buy another young striker. Morata like main striker, Jovic from bench and another striker from Milan Futuro is good for this seasson
Yes amazing, I’m very excited. I’m sure with him and Royal Nobody stands a chance against us
After Morata, it will be the era of Camarda.
Bring chiesa far better use of money
And use pulsic as a sticker he is now red hot in front of the goal
The only problem with Chiesa is that he is injury prone. But yea he doesn’t want to extend his contract with Juve and they said he is avaliable for 25mil.
Some people want Milan to sign any bum player just because he is Italian.
If your plan is to play Pulisic as a striker, Milan already has Chukwueze to play instead of Pulisic on the right.
And if you are going to play a winger as a striker, Milan already has Okafor.
Milan doesn’t need Chiesa. Juventus is getting rid of him for a reason.
I think chiesa is the best Italian player that isn’t playing for inter while the standard really isn’t high there is no better Italian option.
And if it’s a question between morata or chiesa I choose chiesa
Okafor is great but also injury prone and chukwueze didn’t had a good season so we should have better options
From Zirkzee and Weiffer we end up with Morata and Royal.. God help us next season!
Meanwhile Juventus got Douglas Luis, De Grigorio and Motta
Inter who already have a better squad than us got Zielinski and Tharemi.
How are we gonna compete for the title?
Also I forgot to mention that even Atalanta got Zaniolo and they have bigger ambitions than us
Wow and they got Zaniolo for 6mil loan deal. Thats a great move. If he can regain his form they will have a top AM without a huge risk. Meanwjile we will have Loftus who is not even a real AM and goes missing in 90% of the games.
The one I’m looking at is Girona getting Donny van der Beek for 1m from Man Utd – not a position we need the help in at the moment, but potential for a bargain if he can get back to anywhere near his best.
Wow thats a great bargain as well. AM is not our top priority but if you can improve the position with such a cheap move then why not.
Zaniolo. Another bum Italian player who produces more yellow and red cards than goals.
Yeh I can’t believe they’re hyping up Zaninogo now.
investing in 2 ACL’s is CRAZY! I swear if Gasp makes Zaniolo shine, he should be elected as the next Pope.
Ofc. 13M is much cheaper than 40M. Ac stingy
Same with Weiffer.. they refused to pay 30 mil for a 22 player with big potential and now he is going to Brighton. This management is just pathetic at this point
Does he really have a big potential then if he ended up in Brighton?
Weiffer is 24 turning 25 in November and Milan didn’t refuse to pay 30M for him. They choose not to engagein a bidding “war”. There is a difference.
Brighton got him for 30M, feyenoord was asking 35M from Milan btw
My apple is much better than that orange.
Zirkzee: 50m transfer (10m per season on a 5 year contract), ~7m gross wages
Morata: 15m transfer (5m per season on a 3 year contract), ~11m gross wages
Lukaku: 5-6m loan fee, 1 year, 12m gross wages
There’s not much difference in those, give or take. Obviously I’m assuming some numbers but thinking it’s “13m v 40m” is completely ignoring reality of how budgeting works
But it is 13 vs 40.
It’s pretty obvious you’re the one who doesn’t understand that wages and transfer fee is under different finances.
That’s not how budgeting works though – they have a budget for the year and each player has a cost for the year. That cost is the wages, bonuses and the amortised transfer fee.
Those options are not massively different in their annual cost; yes it’s 40 v 13 in strict fee, but that isn’t the cost to Milan.
You are correct about m and M obviously, my bad.
Now that I think about it. This whole thing is pointless. We’re not gonna sign Morata because that would mean we’d need to break the salary cap and it’s pretty obvious we ain’t doing that. Neither are we signing lukaku, same reason. And the zirkzee thing was over the second Kia said 15M.
With amortised fees we could easily buy a 70M striker but for some baffling reason we do not.
Also a smool m is meter a capital M is million.
The issue isn’t which player to buy – we all have our opinions – neither right nor wrong.
The issue is we are owned by an investment company that is concerned only about one thing – and that is PROFIT.
Because of that, decisions that should be based on football – are not. The players are irrelevant. Every year the names change and every year we have the exact same process – and that is to spend as little amount of $ as possible so as to not ruin your profit margin. It is why we continually make low ball offers to players we have chased and supposedly scouted for months and months; ask players to slash their salary demands; seek only those players on expiring deals or free; seek inexperienced players with resale value; and blame commissions as a blocker to closing a deal. There will always be an excuse.
This is MONEYBALL. If the algorithm says the player is only worth X we will not spend a dollar over X to get him. Nice on paper but that is not how teams that aspire to win consistent titles are made. Nice for the bottom line, but last I checked they don’t give out trophies for being the most profitable club – otherwise Atlanta would be the most historic club in the world – not Real Madrid.
So the cycle will go on and on and each summer and winter will be the same. We are interested in X player and Y player and we foolish fans get excited for a while only to be disappointed when X and Y player are swooped up by other teams that don’t haggle over the players salary and don’t ask for discounts. Sure we will find a few reclamation projects for cheap discounts that will pan out (Pulisic) – but many will not – as that is not how clubs serious about WINNING TITLES operate.
So enjoy the ride and the drama, and be prepared to be disappointed yet again when the majority of the names we are linked to sign elsewhere and Let’s just hope we can get a few decent players to be competitive and hopefully qualify for UCL – cause we need that to keep our profit margin – as that is all Redbird care about – and the cycle continues.
Good times.
If they would operate purely on moneyball they wouldn’t pay 13 mil EUR for Morata, because he will have no resell value as over 31-years old player. Instead they would get any no-name youngster with promising numbers.
Exactly. Some people have peas for brains. They think we have American owners = moneyball.
Moneyball doesn’t mean the player have a resale value in the future. You guys doesn’t understand the term well. Go watch the movie “Moneybal” When the method first invented and applied.
It’s about making the, even the most underrated in term of money value.
Nice essay, but it’s an F. Once again you don’t understand moneyball and not a single player they signed has, as yet, been sold for a profit.
Morata is better option than Zirkzee.
Especially taking into consideration ridiculous fees and fuss made by Zirkzee’s agent. Pay 40 + 15 mil for average young player that so far achieved NOTHING and did not show anything special. If he turns out to be great, then in 2 years agent will demand 25 mil commission, otherwise he will sign a deal with PSG. Just keep away guys like this from Milan.
Morata is not ideal but he will guarantee some level of quality for 2-3 years and give Milan time to look for younger striker (or maybe Camarda). Or reinvest that money into midfield.
I’m pretty sure Zirkzee is going to be a megastar, but it would have been suicide to pay that commission and after 1-2 years, that crook would have been trying for a new contract. Morata is a stop gap, 4-5th choice because management went all in on Zirkzee and failed to have a good backup plan. This is the biggest failing of RedBird so far.
That’s when we need a decent (and experienced) directors running the club. If we somehow agree with the hefty commission, they also should make an agreement regarding the future contract extension. That’s called a business. You got some, we got some. We def need some of that Italian job.
Im not sure if Morata can even play good as a lone striker. His numbers are only good when he plays with a partner up front.
R, you just compare salaries. Not the real cost. Mortal for $13M + all the experience in Europe/ international and Zirkzee for $40M +15M in commissions + only one good season in a mid-table Serie A team with no real ambition + all the risk of not being able to recoup the money spent if he flops, I’ll go for Morata. Let him and his greedy agent go to England where any average and unproven players got big salary for sitting on the bench.
Mate, I’m on the side suggesting that Morata is a fine option, I’d be very happy to see him in Milan – I was replying to someone insinuating Morata is a ‘cheap’ option, but in reality he’s a similar financial commitment (though not for as long).
I personally think either will work well – Zirkzee has been a strong player for years and last year that potential looked to finally be unlocked, he really brought out the best in the attacking unit around him. Morata is an experienced, proven player whose various teammates and managers seem to love and always ends up with very respectab numbers – his big weakness being suffering under pressure and in big moments.
Both would be a potential upgrade on where we were last season, not to disparage Giroud but he was really struggling in the second half of the year.
it’s not a cheap option for a back up striker. Unless we’re trying to coast on him a la Giroud…
Why hasn’t Juventus who hired Motta who coached Zirkzee in Bologna gone all the way for him? Why didn’t Motta push Juve to have him? Maybe they don’t see him as a big club player or think that he doesn’t deserve the amount+commission requested by his agent.
Some of you just don’t want to ask yourself these questions because you’re too busy into your hatred towards the Americans owners.
Exactly, also in his home country he is not even good enough to go to Euro as backup player (only got there because other backup player had injury). We should stop acting like Zirkzee is some kind of megastar, he is just average youngster so far. Even Jovic this season had better minutes/goals ratio and we see him as cheap backup.
Because they have Vlahovic and, unless they can find a buyer for him, what would be the point?
For the record, I’m fine with Milan choosing not to pay the extortion but not exactly the same situations.
Ohh, we’re watching Morata now, got it!!! 👀
Ok people, all this talk of moneyball missed several points. First, every team has a budget. You can’t outspend your budget and not going far in either the CL or Europa League screwed that budget. Moneyball also means evaluating players on a number of qualities and looking at what your team needs based on how you play.