AC Milan are continuing to work on the possibility of signing Joshua Zirkzee and they have an advantage over the competition from abroad, a report claims.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Zirkzee is a player that Milan have admired for months and he remains the priority target for the management, but there remain alternatives such as Romelu Lukaku of Chelsea and Santiago Gimenez of Feyenoord.
Everyone within the mercato team at Milan agree on Zirkzee and there have been ‘productive contacts’ with his agents over a deal, because the player is ‘in love’ with Milan and would gladly stay in Italy after two positive seasons at Bologna.
He arrived at Bologna as a talent to be developed, and he will leave as a €40m man. The mutual will is there for Milan and Zirkzee, yet the obstacles of salary and above all commissions to his entourage remain.
Milan will not pay €15m in signing bonuses to agents for a player who has a €40m release clause. Common sense suggests they would probably agree to invest €45m, perhaps a bit more, but not a total figure of €55m. The club have already said no to the requests of some agents in the past.
The impression is that the CEO Giorgio Furlani – who returned to Italy after a quick trip to Dubai – will accelerate soon, along with the technical director Geoffrey Moncada and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but they will not deviate from their principles.
They will focus a lot on the No.9 but will not pay ‘XXL figures’ and, if possible, they will give their preference to a young striker, ready to lead the line for five or ten years.
