AC Milan want Mehdi Taremi to be their 10th and final signing of the summer, with the management persisting in their attempts to land him.
According to this morning’s La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below), Milan have decided that Taremi is the only No.9 they will make a concrete attempt to sign in the final four days of the summer mercato.
The 31-year-old striker has also made a decision: he told Porto that he wants to join Milan. Now, there are around 80 hours to try and make all parties come together in agreement.
Geoffrey Moncada has been following Taremi for months. Paolo Maldini and Ricky Massara had virtually wrapped up a deal for Marko Arnautovic from Bologna though, while the decision was made to sign Noah Okafor for what the current management believe was a discounted price.
Head coach Stefano Pioli asked for an effort from Moncada and Giorgio Furlani because another striker would be very useful given Olivier Giroud will soon turn 37 and needs to manage his work load.
Taremi is liked because of his characteristics and his approach: he has a physical impact, he scores and in the box he knows how to battle. In other words, he is an old-fashioned centre-forward that the new double-pronged wing attack can play off.
Porto asked for €30m in the first phase of the market but when Milan knocked again two weeks ago, they made it clear that they were ready to go down to the region of €20m. After all, Taremi’s contract expires next June.
So why won’t Porto sell him now, instead of letting him go for free? There are a couple of answers. The first is that only the winner of the Portuguese league gets to the Champions League groups and Taremi, in the eternal struggle with Benfica, is a huge asset.
The second: when Porto sold Otavio to Al-Nassr, the coach Sergio Conceiçao reacted badly and – in the event of Taremi’s farewell – he would likely be even more frustrated by losing another key piece.
These are also dynamics that guide a complex negotiation, which today will take a first turn. Today Milan will have a new dialogue with Porto to understand if the mission is possible or not.
How high will Furlani and Moncada bid? Reasonably, it will be around €15m, not so far from the €20m requested by Porto. Then, Lorenzo Colombo can head out on loan to Monza.
Overpriced but we’ve waited too long. $15m should be the max for a 31 year old in the final year of his contract. Also not much interest from other clubs.
If not find a loan player and sign taremi on a pre-contract in January with higher wages.
Couldn’t agree more
It sounds like 15 plus bonuses and a 3year contract. Gives us time to find the next long-term striker.