The AC Milan management are concerned about the amount that Youssouf Fofana is playing, and they will look to give him some help in the January window.
As Calciomercato.com report, Fofana was the player that Milan really wanted in the summer and the 14 appearances he has made for 1140 minutes shows how important he is. However, he is not having much chance to rest and this is concerning the directors.
The lack of a real replacement in the squad and the absence of Ismael Bennacer due to injury have led the French midfielder to have to play practically all of the games, causing predictable tiredness, especially given he plays plenty for France too usually.
The most obvious manifestation came during the Cagliari match, which came after his excellent performance against Real Madrid. He got a lovely assist for Rafael Leao, then made a bad mistake for Zappa’s first goal.
Bennacer’s return will not be enough, also because his condition will have to be evaluated after a serious injury, so the management are already beginning to look at who could be signed in January to provide added cover.
The first target is Morten Frendrup of Genoa, who Napoli had also shown interest in this summer. The 23-year-old is in the sights of Liverpool, Brentford and Brighton, and Genoa’s ownership issues mean he could be sold for €18-20m.
Johnny Cardoso is another name on the list and Real Betis are thinking about selling him to raise money. However, they are looking for €25-30m so some kind of loan formula might be needed. The USA international has Italian passport and therefore would not occupy a non-EU slot.
The third name is Carney Chukwuemeka of Chelsea. The 21-year-old is a real obsession of Geoffrey Moncada, who could get him on loan with an option to buy, but he is more comfortable as a mezzala than as deeper-lying player.
I’m not very well knowledgeable about Johnny Cardoso, but I did like his stats on datamb and fbref defensively wise. However, it seems that the posters who have followed him consider that going for him would be a horrible mistake, so I’m not going to make a case for him.
Ideally, I’d like us to get Ricci, if not then Frendrup.
And please forget about Chukwuemeka, he is not even a DM and I’m fed up with us being a kindergarten to develop kids. We need already proven players.
Verratti on free would be best. If they can find common ground on salary.
1 is experienced.
2 is Italian
3 is a proper DM.
Ideally he’d get pirlo to juve kinda renaissance here.
Sounds precisely like the kind of signing Inter will make instead.
They are smart like that. Benefit of having a competent sporting director I guess
that’s right! I was happy when I heard the name verrati!
Haven’t seen this article in couple weeks.
I wonder if my comments get eaten because I got addblockers and shît.. it’s weird
Like I written -Haven’t seen this article in couple weeks.-.and it didn’t want to post it.
Then I add that lower bit and poof. Up it goes. Weird
I have one too. I don’t have issues. It’s the site. Its buggy.
Frendrup. Knows the league and is going to be better priced. Cardoso only if we can’t get Frendrup. Forget the Carney. We’re 1/4 with former Chelsea players, and it’s enough.
I agree no more Chelsea players.
We need an ltalian. To add a foreigner you will have to remove one from the LIST. Keith 🇲🇹
Ricci – Frendrup – Verratti – Rovella
The club has never lost a game when Musah and Reijnders start in the pivot and never given up more than 1 goal on the field together (not including Parma this year as Musah was subbed out for Fofana at 1-1, I am counting, 0-0 Dortmund, 2-1 PSG, 2-1 Newcastle, 3-0 Rennes, 5-1 Cagliari…I think Musah is available, but he might be expensive…
Yeah, I don’t see the urgency here. I agree that Fofana should get more rest, but that’s pretty easy to do if we just rotate more in midfield. We have Musah and RLC both available to rotate in at CM. Let’s just start rotating more and dialing back the Fofana minutes.
Cardoso is up and down, but he has the technical ability to play in Serie A. He would be a fine deputy DM to Fofana, but that price would have to come down. At least half of the fee is grounded in potential. Johnny isn’t there yet, but in a few more years he will be. Not a bad idea to lock him up on wages he’d take today so we don’t sink a lot in him. And the. He’d be a value sell if we needed to dump him.
Yes jim. Cardinale will prefer cardoso. American connection will become strongest with 3 player.
All 3 is young and foreign, we need to choose who is the cheapest one.
Ricci and any other top level midfielder will be very hard to get in January, I’d say roll with what you got and don’t forget Bennacer will be back in a month or so. All the money should be spent on a proper LB to give Theo something to think about.
Ricci has contract until 2026….
Fofana pushed and moved. So, if Ricci has learnt anything from Belotti is that extending with Cairo is a career su1c1de; you just end up being his sl@ve during your golden years…
Tomiyasu who is sub for Calafiori and Ben White can be an ideal addition and finally a permanent fix for RB. He also has contract until 2026 and has Serie A experience through his time at Bologna.
These 2 + J.David is what an actual summer mercato should look like.
still under their weird budget constraints
still young players
Tomiyasu also bring Asian market, while Ricci finally gives us that quality Italian we need (some people will whine, but its just a fact, currently we can’t register foreigners in UCL if we don’t sell others first)
But before that you can have also successful winter mercato by bringing Frendrup and Gnoto (give Puli more CAM minutes, while also having someone to compete with Chukwueze). sell RLC, Jovic, Florenzi/Calabria.
*(maybe Calabria can open Ricci talks, I always thought due to his lack of speed, he would be ideal as RCB and Torino only play with back 3: his defending and tackles, when not chasing, are class)
PS: If our management weren’t Americans, this would be such a realistic and solid plan, but here comes more EPL subs…
Wasn’t Musah supposed to the backup??? We paid 21M for him to sit the bench along w Chuck??
Benny will be back so I don’t see us spending any big $$ in January as usual. Just more stories to sell clicks
Benny isnt even F to Fofana