AC Milan CEO Giorgio Furlani believes that Alvaro Morata will have the best spell of his career at the club, while he also spoke about a couple of other reported targets.
The hunt for a new striker began practically at the end of last season when it was certain that Olivier Giroud would not renew and would head for the United States, and the soap opera has only just ended.
Last night we revealed the full background on how Milan ended up going from focusing on a profile like Joshua Zirkzee to someone a lot different and more experienced in Morata, who signed his contract yesterday.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Geoffrey Moncada were the men put in charge of putting the pieces in place for the post-Pioli era, and after hiring Paulo Fonseca they decided the Spaniard is the right man to take the baton from Giroud.
Furlani has given an interview to La Gazzetta dello Sport which was conducted in Madrid where he was yesterday to close the Morata operation, and his comments have been relayed by PianetaMilan.
Is Morata a done deal?
“Everything is fine with the player. He has signed a contract that will tie him to us for the next four seasons, plus an optional one. As for the transfer, it has not yet been completed because there are some technical issues to resolve. Triggering a release clause is a complex and delicate process that we are completing with the utmost attention.”
Morata said he wanted to stay at Atlético and then opted for the Milan project…
“It means we are very convincing. How did it go? We convinced him with great teamwork. A special mention goes to Zlatan Ibrahimović and Paulo Fonseca. The former explained to him what it means to play for Milan and be the centre-forward of this team, the latter told him how he wants to use him. And here the value of our coach was decisive.”
What qualities will he bring?
“Álvaro is someone who scored 21 goals for Atlético last year, in addition to those for the national team. Someone who has scored everywhere: Italy, Spain, England, Champions League. Someone who has won 20 trophies in his career: his habit of success has been decisive for us.
“We are very satisfied, and I will add a couple of things: the first, more general, is that Álvaro has a great desire to come to Milan and is very confident that his time with Milan will be the best stage of his already decidedly brilliant career. A confidence that we fully share.
“The second, more personal, is that being with him I understood why they chose him as captain of the national team: they gave him the armband because he speaks like a leader, it is something that impressed me.”
What do you think about the impatience of fans and the pressure to make moves?
“We know what we’re doing and we’re not distracted by names and rumours circulating. A year ago we weren’t shy on the mercato, but it’s clear that we needed to rebuild half the team. This year that need isn’t there, so we’re moving towards very specific objectives.”
Is it true that you have interest in Lazar Samardzic and Youssouf Fofana?
“Good players, but we don’t focus on just one player because that’s not how it works, we’ll see which situations develop best. I repeat, the summer of 2024 is very different from that of 2023.”
‘This year that need isn’t there, so we’re moving towards very specific objectives.’
There, he still stated that kind of balderdash. More like we’re missing out very specific objectives.
Summer 24 is indeed different to that of 23. And that of 22 and 21 for that matter.
However, this summer will reveal how we want to operate as a club and how ambitious we are. There’s no shadow of directors past. It’s fully on him and Moncada and how much they believe in their work.
Yes last season they can make excuse many new player need time to adaptatio also the coach not their choice . This season they choose coach ,changing medical staff , fix few position. This season will be their test to show how they operate