AC Milan are in the market for a new central midfielder after Ismael Bennacer’s injury, and Genoa’s Morten Frendrup is reportedly the latest name on their radar.
This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) reports that Milan are evaluating a series of midfielders to potentially target in January because Bennacer’s injury – which came after weeks of conflicting rumors about the Algerian’s remaining in the team – has significantly reduced the depth.
Paulo Fonseca does not have a deputy to Youssouf Fofana at present and it means the Frenchman is already being forced to work overtime, starting in all of the Rossoneri’s last seven matches and only catching his breath against Venezia and Lecce after the win was secured.
Fonseca is working on Yunus Musah, but the fact that the American is not yet ready (and there are questions about whether he ever will be ready to play that role) is demonstrated by the 63 minutes played between August 31st and today.
This is where Frendrup of Genoa appears as a potential target, even if much will depend on Bennacer’s recovery. The Rossoneri staff hope that the Algerian can return as soon as possible, but patience will be required because the risk of relapse after rushing is high.
Frendrup is actually also out due to a calf problem, but it is less worrying than Bennacer’s injury and he should be fit to face Bologna after the break. The Dane has admirers abroad and it is believed his current asking price is around €20m.
The 23-year-old signed a contract renewal until 2028 in February and he was top in Serie A for intercepted balls, tackles and steals, then second for duels won. He made his debut with the national team on 8 September in the 2-0 victory over Serbia in the Nations League.
The other profiles that the management are evaluating includes Johnny Cardoso of Real Betis, already explored in the summer, plus the Chelsea duo Carney Chukwuemeka and Cesare Casadei, the latter of whom in recent days admitted to being a Milan fan.
Just what the doctor ordered. Frendrup is exactly the type we been missing for years now.
Not at all, because he plays central midfield while we use defensive midfielders and attacking midfielders it wouldn’t work, maybe ricci would be good
You only looked where he plays and decided he’s not it. You didn’t look at his defensive stats. Gattuso was also a central midfielder you know…
Frendrup plays the same role as Ricci does at
torino but he’s better at it than him.
So he’s better at defensive work and costs less.
Let’s be clear here, we never had cover for Fofana.
Bennacer would be playing beside him if fit.
This is the reason people have been screaming for a DM all summer, because we did not have 1 let alone a back up.
Also, why sell Adli if we were not bringing in a replacement?
Has anyone at the club figured out what system we are building the squad for?
If it was 433 then we have Fofana as DM and Benny, TJ, MUsah, RLC as Mezzala – still need a back up DM
If 4231 or 442 then we have Fofana, TJ, Benny when fit, still need a DM.
Still can’t believe with all the messing on the market we ignore Hojbjerg and Amrabat, both going cheap, in their primes and very experienced quality players.
There is not an are in this squad that doesn’t have similar gaping holes (full backs, Keeper, Midfield, striker)
It is almost impossible to sign as many players as we have in 2 years since winning title and still be so devoid of options
I agree with you. Hojberg and Amrabat should’ve been added to this team. But I also think Endo from Liverpool would be a good addition to this team. Good consistent player currently struggling because Gravenbech is playing out of this world.
Endo is 31 and slow. He’s not what we need.
Age is just a number. Van bommel was also old and slow and was exactly what we needed at the time.
Endo would be fine. If we could somehow get verratti it would be even better. I’m just mentioning verratti because he’s 31, a dm, Italian and his contract is ending in 2025
As a Dane I’ve followed Højbjergs entire career and always liked him and definitely wouldn’t have minded had we gotten him but salary wise he doesn’t really come that cheap as he earns € 6,180,000 per year at Marseille.
At some point we’ll have to admit that the 5M€ salary cap is no longer working.
But to think we could have gotten Højbjerg for the same amount of money we paid to get Emerson…
I agree and it also has been that to some extent since the Elliot days and I expect it to be further regulated in the coming years but only time will tell if that is actually the case.
He is only on loan with an option to buy at Marseille so I suspect that we could.
Get amrabat and bring kessie back
We can eat calhanoglu + barella alive
Unfortunately, Benny is not normally fit, so we need someone to permanently take over from him.
Maybe we can get some money for him in the winter mercato
@sempremilan
I am not posting too quickly.
This is my 1st post of the day.
It’s the 1st post relating to this article!
Someone needs to sort out the gremlins in this system
If only they’d really look around the league for reinforcements…
Ac “20 m offer” Milan
They tried to validate the news by tagging “20 million” Which is Milan’s operation limit.
I read a Danish article a few months ago and Frendrup was the player with the most tackles all 23/24 Serie A season and that with a great margin. He almost had twice as many as number two who I believe was Koopmeiners.
Oh yes!!! FINALLY A PROVEN EXPERIENCED LEADER we have been lacking!!
Which probably mean this is just a rumor and we’re not actually targeting him
My comment was 100% sarcasm. He has, what, one cap in his wallet and has proven nothing. Just another musah.
😀 I thought you was being sarcastic here as well but just look at the article
“he was top in Serie A for intercepted balls, tackles and steals, then second for duels won”
That isn’t too bad and just because he only just got his International debut doesn’t mean too much as Denmark has a vast amount of quality midfielders to choose from. Hjulmand for example only has 12 international matches for us and only got his debut September last year and had there not been the Euros this summer he would have had less under his belt. Frendup also has roughly 200 shared matches in between the best Danish league and Italy in his career so its not like he is some inexperienced lad.
@Martin Bernhard
A bit of topic,
Frendrup seem to be the third Danish defensive midfielder (the two others being Højbjerg and Hjulmand) that seem to be good profiles for Milan and that interested many here.
Is there a thing in Denmark with defensive midfielders ?
I think overall if we consider that Denmark has a population of roughly 5.5 million citizens we are probably one of the nations with the best output of talents going all the way in their professional careers abroad and that goes for all positions.
Not in regard of Frendrup as he isn’t too tall but the Danes probably has an average size of 1.83 meter or something and that probably helps a bit as well as a lot of them are well physical build. Combine that with a lot of Danes speaking several languages also helps in transitioning to a new life abroad. It can also be argued that the Danish leagues teams doesn’t buy especially expensive players so developing talents and then selling them is what brings them butter to the bread.
Had he not been injured currently then Mauritz Kjærsgaard from RB Salzburg would most likely also recently have gotten his international debut and I think he has a bright future ahead of him and probably soon could be one of Salzburgs next big sales.
Even if he had played 200 matches in Serie A alone I still wouldn’t be convinced he’d be good enough to lift the level of our midfield. Make it 200 caps and it’d be a whole nother story.
😀 Nobody has ever played 200 caps for Denmark. Anyways its fair enough that you isn’t convinced about him.
Dunno.
I didn’t really watch him to be honest, but many here seem to consider him to be a good player and fbref has him in the 97th percentile in tackling which is insane and pretty high in blocking and interceptions as well. That already seem better than Musah.
My favourite option is still Ricci though.
This boy is quality player he is what we are missing
Finally a good name…