AC Milan are serious about trying to sign Viktor Gyokeres from Sporting CP and they might just have a couple of cards to play in their favour, a report claims.
As this morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) recalls, it seems that a friendship was struck up at the Dom Alfonso Henrique stadium in Guimaraes, where Portugal beat Sweden 5-2 on Thursday evening.
Rafa Leao was decisive with the first goal of the night and on the other side was Gyokeres, the new Milan target. What is certain is that Milan will sign another striker in the summer, given that Olivier Giroud could leave for America and if he ends up staying he would no longer have a guaranteed place.
The Rossoneri is looking for new goals and with Gyokeres they could secure their future: at 25 years old, in his first season at Sporting CP, has has scored 36 goals scored in 39 games played considering all competitions, one every 89 minutes.
He was purchased in the summer from Coventry for €24m and it turned out to be a bargain. This time too, with Sporting involved, there is a clause to resolve worth €100m. It is a high but absolutely negotiable price.
Supply and demand could meet halfway, because an offer of €50m is the basis for trying to build a negotiation and would bring the Portuguese club to the table.
Two allies
The first card that Milan will be able to play is that of the king: Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Gyokeres, a Swede from Stockholm, subscribes to Ibra’s charm and Zlatan has just been crowned at the helm of the club by Gerry Cardinale.
If Ibra calls it’s difficult not to answer, even if in the meantime the bells of the Premier League ring. Gyokeres was Zlatan’s partner for 17 minutes in the Sweden-Belgium match on 24 March 2023, the latter’s last match for the national team.
Viktor is still far from the throne but in the meantime it is as if he has picked up his legacy in the national team: will the same happen at Milan? After Giroud, who arrived at Milan as Ibra’s stand-in and then took centre stage, Gyokeres would be the first full-time striker on whom the club would focus its attention.
Milan could then play their joker, namely the Leao card. Rafa and Viktor exchanged shirts and compliments after the match between their respective national teams.
Viktor said of Rafa: “He is a fantastic player and I admire his work. After the match he told me that I had played well and I replied that he hadn’t done badly either!”
From the next day they began a social bond: Gyokeres is among Leao’s almost six million followers, Leao is among Gyokeres’ 269,000. The likes on Instagram have only fuelled things.
A profile that fits
The rest of Gyokeres’ identikit matches the profile of the attacker that Milan are looking for: a young player with experience, who is at the same time an asset to develop and a surefire investment.
The Swede is 25 years old, as mentioned, and before his exploits in Portugal he had shown himself with Coventry and before that he looked for playing time between Brighton, Swansea and at St. Pauli in the German second division.
He is not available at a discount, but the price tag would not be unaffordable either: the club intend to invest a good part of its summer budget on the next centre-forward. The cost of Joshua Zirkzee, to mention another target, does not differ much though he does know Serie A already.
Among the revenues guaranteed by participation in the next Champions League and the money that will come into cash from sales (€40m from the sales of three players out on loan) Milan already have good spending power.
Anticipation
For both targets the risk is the strong competition from other clubs, which is why Milan need to get on track early, while Ibra can make the difference.
Leao the same, he is a sprinter and an assist man: last year he endorsed the purchase of Noah Okafor. Will a Swede from Sporting CP be the first ‘coup’ of the Ibra-Leao tandem? They hope so.
If you repeat a lie a thousand times, it’s still a lie. Milan will not outbid stupid EPL clubs for this one season wonder.
I’m always a bit skeptical of stats coming out of the Portuguese league, especially considering that this player never done something like this before and is already 25.
He does however look interesting (better than Taremi at least). He is tall, strong, has pace and stamina. He is a fighter, has good dribbling abilities and good passing. He doesn’t always rely on being served and can create chances on his own, for himself or his teammates.
But he is already very hyped, so there is now way we can beat an EPL club to him. I will not be surprised to see a bid from around 60M to 80M for him, which is something we can’t and probably shouldn’t do.
he did do something like this before.. 21 goals in Championship last year. and 12 assists. 17G a year before
true but it’s less goals and assists in like 10 more games….and in the Championship so I didn’t count it as the same.
Currently he is at 50 G+A in 39 games.
I recon Championship is the same lvl as portugal 1st tier anyway. And he’s maturing thats why he is better. Still not worth 100M or even 50M. But alas the market sets the prices.
no its not, stop acting like dumb EPL fans who think their leagues are so much better
im not a dumb epl fan but it is the truth. then again who gives a f what you think, you’re mental
Of course it would be nice to have such a profiled attacker in our team, but we are all aware that it would be extremely difficult to bring him next season. Acquaintance with Ibrahimović or a good relationship with Leao can hardly help here, money will decide in the end.
“Surefire investment”????
LOL. Far from it. IMO he’s the riskiest option of all the rumored strikers. But still… I wouldn’t mind getting him if the price is right.
I’m from Lisbon, Sporting fan and I can guarantee you that Gyo will leave the club this season, for less than 90M€+Extras (10M€).
He’s the player that made the biggest impact in the league in the past 20 years, on his 1st year.
Sporting doesn’t need to sell, we have other valuable players to sell and a stable finance situation. So, we prefer to keep him one more year and use him in next year’s Champions league.
Buy out fee is 100M€
If you want him, pay it!
PS-We didn’t forget yet what you did with that little rat, leão…
lol stop believing freaking GDS for milan rumors, they arent interested, you can keep your one season 100m wonder
Sporting already get 20m euro from ACM for Leao. Even it is not ACM fault but Lille fault. Why sporting not asking Lille to pay Leao transfer fee?
Yall act like he was bought from you by us and not Lille, dummy. Plus guys like him wanted to leave your circus club cuz you Neanderthals literally made them fear for their safety. You clowns drove out your best players, your own fault.
Skip not worth . Just another big money transfer failure from portuguese league like Goncalo,Andre silva ,darwin nunez. Even 50m euro too much for gyokeres
Seems like Gyo is the flavor of the month. Next cycle it will be a different name for a while… What happened to David, Sesko, GImenez (who wasn’t that good VS The States by the way).
Either way, there’s just no way we spend even 50mil on a single striker. He will end up in EPL for like 70mil.
if the offer is 50 or 70, we will keep him.
Like said before, we have other valuable and younger players to sell if needed, we don’t need to sell our most influence player, under the buy out clause.
You can say what you want of the Portuguese league and Sporting. But if there are no plata no ay fiesta……. no discounts for you.
PS- Yes lille are the worst, but you entered the “game”, just by supporting the lies of that rat, Yes lies!! (this was already proven in an European Court, and that’s why he already paid 20 million € to Sporting)…
but if he bites the hand of the ones who raise him, imagine what he will do to you when he wont need you…. you can keep him, we failed with that one.
Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Figo and Paulo Futre are the symbols of our academy, not him.