AC Milan are in search of reinforcements for the midfield and they have identified a Roma midfielder as a potential target, a report claims.
Milan are likely going to have to restock the middle of the park given that Franck Kessie will leave on a free transfer while there is intense speculation that Tiemoue Bakayoko’s two-year loan from Chelsea could be cut short by a year.
According to what is being reported by Il Corriere della Sera (via SempreMilan.it), Milan have set their sights on Bryan Cristante, a midfielder who actually came through the Rossoneri youth sector and is currently playing at Roma.
However, the capital club have no intention of selling him but on the contrary they seem ready to extend his contract, which is currently expiring in 2024.
For Milan, the purchase of the 27-year-old would be very useful for the duel purpose of bolstering the department with a player who knows the league but also because he would count towards being an academy graduate for the UEFA squad list regulations.
Utter nonsense.
It’s not utter nonsense. Milan have currently 18 players over 21 years of age that are not homegrown or Italy-grown and the maximum is 17 players (Kalulu was 21 last year). Even if we get rid of Ballo-Toure, Castillejo and Bakayoko, that opens up two slots that are enough only for Origi and one of Botman/Sanchez.
If we need to buy Botman and Sanchez we need to sell someone. If we buy Sanchez, it seems that one of Diaz/Krunic is gonna be sold/loaned (I believe Adli counts as U21 since he becomes 22 in end of July, so most likely unless he’s really bad he’s gonna stay with the team).
In this context, also Gabbia is most likely gonna stay.
De Ketelaere in this context is a solid lead since he’s 21 years and for this year only, he wouldn’t count towards the lists.
Short story is if we need to buy any other players (e.g. left back) we need to buy someone that is either U21 or italian-grown (udogie, cambiasso).
That’s also the reason why we’ve looked at Berardi (or Zaniolo) since we could skip Messias and they wouldn’t count towards the 17 players (the other 8 players need to be 4 italy grown and 4 Milan-grown)
no thanks, hard pass
I’ve always liked Cristante and would welcome him back. Would be beneficial to Azzurri as well as he would be playing next to Tonali in Milan too.