AC Milan’s second signing of the summer should be Strahinja Pavlovic from Red Bull Salzburg, but the management will not stop there and continue to work on three fronts.
According to Corriere dello Sport (via MilanNews), Geoffrey Moncada and Giorgio Furlani want to give Paulo Fonseca at least three more reinforcements, and the names are Emerson Royal, Youssouf Fofana and Lazar Samardzic.
After Pavlovic, the next signing should be Emerson Royal. After Alessandro Florenzi’s injury, the directors have intensified contacts with Tottenham to try and finally agree on a transfer fee. The player is pushing hard for the move which helps Milan, and a fee of €15m should be enough.
Fofana meanwhile is seen as the player needed to complete Milan’s midfield because Fonseca wants a player with the qualities of the Frenchman, which is why the club are pressing to satisfy the requests of their coach.
The distance between the Diavolo and Monaco is still significant, mainly because the asking price is €35m while the highest offer that Milan want to make is around €17m, given that Fofana has just 11 months left on his contract.
Another of Milan’s targets is Samardzic, but the Udinese playmaker is not currently a priority. However the club maintaining contact with both his father-agent and with Udinese, though they will only do the deal under the right circumstances.
With the limit of two non-EU spots can Milan sign both Pavlovic, Royal and Samardzic?
Yes, domestic transfers don’t count so Samardzic wouldn’t be one.
It doesn’t really matter since Samardzic has a German passport.
Samardzic doesn’t count as new non EU because he came from Serie A club.
The rules has changed that clubs still can only sign 2 new non EU player in a single window, but the non EU player in the squad don’t need to be replaced – that means we can have more than 2 no EU players in the squad.
I assume ‘the right circumstances’ for any further movement beyond a DM would be a sale to raise some funds – whilst we don’t need to sell, four 10M+ signings with zero sales is not a great look on the balance sheet. Annual costs (gross wages plus amortised transfer) probably has Morata as about double what Giroud cost per season and Pavlovic is probably about equal to Caldara and Kjaer’s salaries when you factor in his fee. Presumably a budget increase will cover one or two more but anything after needs some savings and income first.
It’s more about selling deadwoods than the balance sheet imo. We can make 40m transfer and not selling anyone, but that means there will be deadwoods that can’t play because they can’t be included in First team squad list, but still received full salary + tax.
Currently before signing Pavlovic, we have 25 players that is 22 y.o or older. And that’s including homegrown player that is expected to leave like Colombo and Maldini. Once they leave, we will only have 6 homegrown players – so we can only register 17 non-homegrown players. That’s why if Pavlovic, Fofana, Samardzic and Royal, 4 new signing came, we need to at the very least, offload 4 players – otherwise they will be burden for the financially without any contribution whatsoever on the pitch.
And those 25 players still not including Origi and Ballo Toure that is on u23 team list right now.
So it’s true we need to sell – not only to generate fund but also to free space in the squad list, and free salary burden of those players.
It is a possibility (although not necessarly likely) that Adli and Thiaw might leave. I guess that has to be taken into account for the list.
Yeah hopefully there’s a half decent bid for some of our fringe players like say Adli or Pobega. Plus somehow the management rids itself of BalloToure and Origi that would save about 6mn alone on this year’s wage budget.
I don’t know much about Pavlovic but others on the forum seem pleased with him and I’m just glad we got in a genuine target rather than a 3rd choice option.
Not looking forward to Emerson Royale, but Samardzic and Fofana seem like they would improve the quality of the squad if not the 1st XI
Don’t get all the hate for Royal. I think he will turn out to be a solid signing
Have you watched him play?!?!
Why can’t we sign Bellanova instead of Emerson?
Torino only want 20mil
Because he is Italian ?
I don’t know, Moncada seems to see something in Emerson that none of us can see.
He would certainly suit as he came through the academy at Milan.
Dude can’t defend. His marking in fm is 10 out of 20
Talent or lack thereof aside, it’s the principle of it. We’d be paying 20M for a player that came from our academy.