Sergej Milinkovic-Savic may well be the ‘dream’ for Stefano Pioli, but it seems as though Ruben Loftus-Cheek could end up costing the same amount.
As reported by today’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (via SempreMilan.it), Pioli has in fact indicated that the Lazio star is the perfect profile to play as the attacking midfielder in his system, and he could arrive for €25-30m.
However, the paper also report that Loftus-Cheek from Chelsea is being considered as well and he is the name on pole at the moment it seems. His contract expires in June 2024, but despite this the Blues want €25m in order to sell him.
It is a figure that is certainly not minute and it could potentially take up half of the €50m summer budget (excluding any sales and savings on salary), so Paolo Maldini and Ricky Massara will have to think about how to finance it.
The salary received by the English midfielder – around €3.5m net per season – is decidedly more affordable.
Horid deal, chelsea want to play this game no problem the max we should offer is 15 million. If the deal dosent pan out we should offer lazio 30 million of savic
if there is just one smart guy in milano, sell saladmaker and calabria and create a right side similar to our left side – just listen to me
Calabria’s our captain.
Where is your loyalty?
He is rubbish. Forget loyalty.
Tonali should be captain imo. The only reason calabria is captain is because he is from milan academy. Apart from the napoli games he is very average. I think Tonali is better as captain. His work rate is very good. Very often involved in attacking and defensive phase. With that said he still have to improve on his passing quality. But so far he has 7 assist in the league, not bad.
I hope they don’t listen, because the right-hand side has always needed to be more defensive-minded in Pioli’s system in order to free up the left-hand side. Hernandez is able to push forward and think about defending less because the right-back stays to make a back-three and our out-of-possession 4-4-2 shape has Leao up front and Saelemaekers as a midfield press.
Can those players be upgraded? Sure. Should they be sold when they know Pioli’s system well, don’t have huge market value and aren’t paid a fortune…? I don’t think so. Messias and Florenzi… sure, but Calabria and Saelemaekers both have a place next season, unless a very good offer arrives for either (could be used to generate some nice capital gains).
R, perhaps Pioli’s system is that way precisely because he doesn’t have the options on the right that he has on the left? Why would a tactical system want to be so one-sided? Clubs have consistently been able to stymie us by sitting deep or double teaming Leao. Double-teaming is already a risky proposition as it would open up space for other players (if a manager knows what he’s doing, which Pioli may not), imagine trying to double team a right winger similar to Leao’s calibre? Madrid has Vinicius Jr and Rodrygo. Liverpool had Mane and Salah. This is easy stuff to figure out.
We don’t have to listen to you. It’s obvious it would be ideal to “create a right side similar to our left side”. But that doesn’t happen at the snap of the fingers. Calabria isn’t going anywhere any time soon. We have greater holes to fill than to pay the 50-60m necessary to find an RB that is similar to Theo. Sell Saelemaekers? Why? He is a great utility player off the bench. Sell Messias instead and then find a proper RW. Then we need to solve striker and figure out what we’re doing with playmaker, if we’re keeping Diaz (I hope not) or signing Kamada or doing something else. RW, ST, CAM/CM. That’s our market this summer plus the departures of deadwood.
Wait, what 50m budget?!?! Did I miss an article?
We have just banked 125m and are about to qualify for the same cash machine again next year.
50m won’t fix half of our holes.
This is worth a read: https://sempremilan.com/gds-100m-milan-summer-window-strategy
Oh, I did miss an article :D. Thanks
I suppose if we get a couple of the freebies (hopefully Kamada and Nelson) we are chasing then 100m is a workable budget.
Personally I happen to rate Loftus-Cheek too.
100m (98m) assuming sales go a certain way. The article claims 20m from sales and 28m from saved gross salary. All “IFs”. As to the actual transfer budget it seems like it’s 50m. Notice how it seems to be 50m every summer? It looks like the club has established this a “cap” for the time being. No doubt it will not rise substantially until the stadium is built. This is how you manage costs and people just need to get used to it.
Hope 25m are not wasted for player like previous chelsea’s bakayoko style signing.
Wildly overpriced.
Prem stats
– this year: 1 assist 0 goals, 23 games
– 2021/22: 3 assists 0 goals, 24 games
– 2020/21: 0 assists 0 goals, 31 games
Wow! How impressive…. rip off
Sorry 1 goal in 20/21
Yeah, but he’s a DM right? How many goals and assists did Gattuso have on average? Exactly. Some people have crazy expectations…
To be clear I’m not agreeing we should pay 25m for him, because we shouldn’t, but just pointing out that attacking him for his statistics given his role is dumb.
I really hope we dont splash 25+ on this guy and go for Sergej Milinkovic-Savic thats a quality midfielder!
He is injury brone and earns alot of money
And he is non EU, he is old we have Elatu much and much better than him.
I think it is goog policy to sign him and he will be like bakayako.
25-30M€ on him is such a waste.. Why is Milan unable to get good players for a decent price while Atalanta can produce and buy talent season in season out?
This is something that needed to be addressed years ago…
25-30M€ on a benchwarmer? W T F?
10-13 mil sure, but in no way would i support buying him for 25 mil as that seems far to steep a price.
I believe he’ll add quality to Milan’s mid. Big, strong, and technically gifted as well. But of course not for 25 mil.
25m sounds high but I suspect that’s Chelsea’s starting figure, which they’ll hold out for from an English club and climb down if they can’t get it. With a bit of luck and Chelsea needing to clear out their books, hopefully Milan can get a good loan-with-option for him.
It’s a big No from me.
The big question is who want this guys in milan for next season ? maldini, massara or the “owners” ?
Surely not Pioli because he want SmS to join Milan.
Chelsea have to balanced their €600m spredsheet account from this season transfers. So, they will make as much as they can to reach that spending from their selling players players. Even its unreasonable price tag..