Real Madrid intend to listen to offers for Brahim Diaz and two Premier League sides have reportedly expressed an interest in him.
According to a report from Fichajes, Milan are happy with how Brahim Diaz is performing as he is in his third season on loan at the club. The management have the intention of buying him but are not willing to pay the €22m pre-agreed in the summer of 2021.
On the other hand, Real Madrid intend to welcome him back for next season and are not willing to listen to offers, yet there are two Premier League sides keen on the 23-year-old that could place bids to try make them change their mind.
Liverpool are looking at the Spaniard as a possible replacement for some outgoing players with Jurgen Klopp an admirer of the versatile Brahim Diaz, while Newcastle United are working on their squad for next season and their goal is to make a significant investment to incorporate several top-level players.
Brahim is a profile that they like a lot because he fits within the club’s policy due to his age and also Eddie Howe’s system, given he can play centrally or as a winger. He is not the main target for the Magpies, but he is on the owners’ list.
let them have him. do not use the budget for him
I’m going to post this again because I think it’s important.
In very short summary STOP THE PRESS. Management and Pioli need to watch (or rewatch) Daniel Maldini’s half against Inter and then his 65 minutes against Sassuolo and pause all decision making until he has played out the year. I am sure Paolo will have a hard time with this. He should believe his boy has a real role to play next year. It will be a very difficult thing for him to justify given his obvious conflict, but that is not to say the faith in Daniel cannot be justified.
If you want to read on…
There is a lot of money to be saved, which can be used to pursue someone of genuine quality to lead the attacking midfield, to my mind that should be Zaniolo, instead of continuing with this patchwork of average players (which is our current squad) and then signing more of the same. I’d let Diaz go and sell anyone Pioli doesn’t have faith in. Maldini can play attacking roles off the bench and starting against weaker Serie A side next season. In doing so, he would give us more than any attacking player we currently have (other than Leao and the 3 weeks of good Brahim a season though this latter point in questionable).
I’ll put the detail here because there isn’t really anywhere else to put it.
Spezia’s change in coach appears to have resulted in changed fortunes for Maldini who is growing by the week. Semplici appears to have a lot of faith in the boy, who took free kicks and corners playing as the left winger in a 4-3-3. Maldini played a central/roaming role as a # 10 / second striker / AM (depending on exactly what the coach asked him to do) against Inter. To my eye he played both roles well and with tactical intelligence (which is not to say it was perfect).
My starting point for watching Maldini is trying to be as harsh as possible. I want him to succeed, for all of the obvious reasons, but I don’t want emotion to cloud my judgment.
In this sort of scenario, the inability to wipe the smile off my face, while watching, is usually a pretty good indicator that what I am seeing is real. It’s the purest expression of emotion telling reason ‘I told you so…even though my reasoning sucked’.
To put it into context, it was great (for Daniel) that he scored against Milan. He did a few things in that game but he still looked a boy, not like the sort of player that could consistently impact a game. Even the goal itself slowly looped in without any real whip, it almost seemed like a miskick (I know it wasn’t), or like something you’d see on the Primavera pitch.
His second half against Inter was much more substantial, even more substantial than a well taken goal. He looked dynamic and powerful, playing a central, roaming role as described above. He was instrumental in creating the second Spezia goal, with 3 or 4 efforts in a phase of play that ended up creating the space to get the ball to N’Zola who was fouled in the box.
I’m going to say that the 65 minutes he played against Sassuolo is the first game of the rest of his career. It will be looked back on as the evidence of his progression from a talented boy to professional who belongs on a Serie A pitch, and not at Spezia (with all due respect).
His dribbling and ball control had the languid grace I’d associate with CDK. Unlike CDK, though, Maldini beat his opponents with a 360 degree range of motion. When he couldn’t do it with his own feet, he would chip a little pass to a team mate which provided him with the time and space to move the game forward (like something Thomas Mueller would do).
He looked quick and powerful. I was surprised by this change in him. He’s also grown since his Primavera days and looks almost 6’3. He was not bullied off the ball by more mature opponents and gave his own back. But ultimately, and most pleasingly, he was clearly a class above the rest of the players out there (or perhaps clearly on par with Berardi and Lauriente).
He tracked back a long way, too, showing a defensive substance that I had been warned not to expect. It wasn’t perfect but he worked hard. It has to be said that there were a few occasions where he took more central defensive positions on the edge of and inside Sassuolo’s penalty box, which I thought should have been covering the right back/winger for Sassuolo. But he seemed to be telling Nikolaou (listed as the Spezia left centre back) as play unfolded that it was his job. Spezia was doing something weird with Amlan (the starting left back) and Nikolaou who seemed to swap positions during the game. It was Nikolaou who seemed to be doing all of the attacking up the left wing (behind Maldini). It could be that marking got caught up in the confusion.
The negatives were that Daniel ran out gas and was a bit too right-footed, for my liking, but that didn’t get him into trouble or closed down the way CDK being too left-footed does. Assuming Daniel continues to start, it will probably take another 2 or 3 weeks to gain the conditioning to run out a match. I don’t see an issue there (especially since neither Diaz nor CDK play full matches).
I think this is very real.
Bruno, I appreciate the passion of your post. It is not TLDR. The Daniel Maldini hypothesis is interesting. The one caveat I would have is that he seems to play mostly as an LW and that is where we have Leao. We also have Chaka Traore, who at 18 seems to have more than Maldini. If Diaz leaves CDK is most likely to get the nod as starting CAM, for better or for worse, given his price tag. I guess my point is: would Daniel be OK with returning to Milan for a sub role? Further, would WE want that for him? Regardless, maybe I’ll tune in to some Spezia matches to see what you are describing in action…
I now realise that the first paragraph in which I discuss his roles, I didn’t say that he played as the LW in the 4-3-3 against Sassuolo. The game against Inter was a central role.
According to TM, he has only played LW twice at Spezia. His other appearances were all central roles as a AM, SS and CF.
To my mind that is, realistically, 3 roles he could play for Milan. We are very weak for AM and SS. He could play LW, too (and possibly even as a LM/wing back but I don’t want to get carried away).
I can’t really speak to what Daniel would and would not be okay with.
In reality he is going to have to earn a spot for Milan. My gut tells me he’d want to start doing that as soon as possible because he’ll want to be a club legend (like his old man). But who knows.
I am not a CDK basher, far from it. I think there is clearly ability there but that he is pretty clearly not the AM we want him to be, that the scoring is a red herring – it’s not the real issue (he would not no more an AM if he scored a few headers and tap ins – where is the rest of the game?). He looks to me to be much more suited to playing up front (which is where he made a name for himself). Pioli does not seem to have any interest starting him other than as an AM.
Maldini has the advantage of having been with the squad for 2021/2022 under Pioli. He wouldn’t be starting fresh. If he plays out the rest of the year with Spezia starting games and playing at the level he did against Sassuolo, I’d say he overtakes CDK for the AM role in the pre-season leading into to 2023/2024.
I’m not sure that is what I want, for him to be seen as the starting AM next season, to be honest. It’s a tough game and a tough league and the pressure at Spezia, while more than Brugge given the quality of the leagues, is not what it is at Milan.
I think we need someone who is ready to lead a team as it’s play maker. I see Zaniolo as that player. Part of the reason I like Maldini is that he would provide the depth next year to pursue someone you can build the next 8 years of the project around.
Maldini can play a lot of different roles, which suits the team given the evolution in the formations over the last 10 weeks. Maldini then clearly has the talent and versatility to be a key part of that project moving forward.
Even play him on the right. Imagine, a time when wingers didn’t limit their attacking play by 50%, inverted so that they can shoot with a preferred foot a few times a game.