The game between Napoli and AC Milan on Thursday night was the tale of two centre-forwards: Rasmus Hojlund and Christopher Nkunku.
As Calciomercato.com recall, all the strengths and weaknesses of the two teams emerged. For Milan it is the striker position, while that ended up being Napoli’s strength. Hojlund was simply devastating, providing a perfect assist for David Neres’ goal and then scoring his own goal to make it 2-0.
Read SempreMilan ad-free and get access to exclusive news. Click here for a free trial!
What could have been
Rafael Leao is the forward who has played the most minutes this season for Milan, but in reality, he’s played 43% of the total. This fact raises questions about the attacking emergency Massimiliano Allegri has been dealing with since the start of the season.
In the semi-final in Riyadh, he had no forwards on the bench to try to inject new life into an attack – comprised of Christian Pulisic and Nkunku – that was clearly struggling. Beyond the bad luck, the Rossoneri must question the mistakes made in the summer transfer window.
The coach had been asking since June for a true No.9 with different characteristics than Santiago Gimenez. Two main candidates were identified: Dusan Vlahovic and Hojlund, and there were difficulties in signing the former because of his huge salary.
Igli Tare and his team negotiated over the Danish striker for a month but it fell through due to disagreements over the terms of his transfer from Manchester United. Then, they turned to Nkunku and closed deal with Chelsea in a matter of hours for €38m, which raised some eyebrows.
A bitter sliding doors moment presented itself at the King Saud University Stadium as Hojlund eliminated Milan from another cup competition. With Niclas Füllkrug set to arrive from West Ham, Milan are moving to rectify a mistake, but will it be the right move?
I think the real mistake was buying De Winter. Dude made Hojlund look like prime Lukaku. I still think – given his price tag – that Hojlund wasn’t the way to go at the time.
Oh I see you basically said the same thing 😂
I stand by my opinion of this guy – average/ overrated and made to look like prime Kaka last night by De Winter… any defender with half a brain wouldn’t have let Hojlund turn outfox him like that – twice. Plus he wanted CL football so chose Napoli over Milan which wasn’t exactly our fault..
Milan missed out on Leoni and not Hojlund. Instead of paying Parma what they wanted they went with De Winter because he was 15 mil cheaper. If you as a CB let someone like Hojlund to embarrass you like that then you don’t belong in a club that Aspire to be CL team.
Our management love to scrimp and save to win the accounting world cup.
In their defense, whenever weve splashed the cash (Gimenez, Nkunku recently) they have not been major hits. Too soon to judge Jashari. But perhaps they are just not confident in their scouting department.
But perhaps in summer they wont shy away from Comuzzo or similar should we qualify for UCL.
Hojlund had a good day in the office, we are second in Serie A, and time to sign a real short term striker. Please do not forget that our prime target is Camarda in few years he should be our #9. If we sign someone like Hojlund what happens to Camarda. We need to think long term and strategic. Same goes for Modric, he is perfect as we have Ricci and Jashari that will grow with him by their side
Spent 40M on Nkunku instead of using that same money on Hojland??? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔. That seems to be really working out for us
Brilliant 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Nahh the biggest missed out was spending 70M for both Gimenez and Nkunku when you can get Osimhen for that amount
Well said