Everything points towards Olivier Giroud being AC Milan’s centre-forward for next season and with that comes some concerns, a report has claimed.
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La Gazzetta dello Sport writes that given it is mid-August and we are talking about a player who will turn 37 in six weeks it is unfair to fully criticise Giroud, but there are some observations from preseason that are ‘impossible to ignore’ a few days from the start of the season.
There was a period only a few weeks ago in which Milan got to thinking about using their non-EU slot on Porto’s Mehdi Taremi. In the end Samuel Chukwueze arrived for the right wing, but it shows that a new striker was a concrete thought.
The addition Chukwueze and then of Yunus Musah, have exhausted the bulk of the availability, with Taremi costing €25m, which is why the track seems to have gone cold for now.
Three other paths have been evaluated. One leads to the signing of a young striker from abroad, the other is to try and adapt a young forward like the summer signing Noah Okafor, while the third is to continue relying on Giroud.
It is not legitimate to ask the Frenchman for another season like last year, when he took the field 47 times (out of the 52 games overall), 38 of which were as a starter.
In the event no more signings arrive, it will therefore be necessary to try and use Okafor in that position and possibly to entrust Lorenzo Colombo with some minutes. The summer friendlies show that alternative solutions are needed.
