AC Milan want to see what happens between now and the end of the season before they decide what to do about Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s future, it is claimed.
Journalist Riccardo Gentile spoke on Sky (via MilanNews) about the future of the Swede and claimed that Milan ‘will want to see how this season ends’ before they commit to giving Ibrahimovic another one-year extension.
It is a ‘complicated’ decision to make, because it is undeniable that Ibra has given so much to this team from a mentality point of view and he deserves a lot of credit for the fact the club have been ‘reborn’ over the past couple of seasons, so there should be a certain gratitude towards him.
However, the management also know that they ‘must think about the future’ and as long as Ibrahimovic is in the squad it will always be difficult to really do so, unless Marko Lazetic really is the man they see taking the baton from him.
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We have to accept the fact that a top team can’t rely and survive with a center forward who is frequently injured due to his advanced age and this situation will only get worse as he gets older. Also, it is very hard to justify paying him a very high salary despite his frequent unavailability while other players who are playing constantly at a very high level are being paid less. The only plausible scenario I envision is if there is mutual agreement with the club to have him in assistant coaching capacity.
You spoke very well but Ibrahimovic is a player that carry a team along with his scoring ability skill and leadership attributes let give him one more year extension and I believe Ac milan will win the scudetto.
I’d offer him a conditional contract with the understanding that he would be the third choice.
If he extends, he needs to be paid per appearance, at this point we’re just throwing money away. Also he needs to accept a more backseat role, that of a player/assistant coach than of a protagonist.
He is definetly not starting material any more. So paying him such a huge sallary for a couple of goals per season is a compleate waste of money. If he significantly reduces his sallary to like 1mil or something then we can keep him as a back up. But if we can get Belotti for free in the summer then one striker will needs to go again to make space for Belotti. Lazetic is new so the choise will be between Ibra and Giroud. Giroud has shown that he is much more relaible right now, so i would rather keep him.
Offer him Player / Coach role with his wages heavily dependent on performance / game time. He still has a lot to offer this young team, but the MAIN thing we need to do is get in a 20 – 25 goals a season striker that is not in their final seasons as a player. Summer transfer window is gonna be huge for us and define if we are going for silverware or a top 4 finish again
Ibra is never a waste of money.
One more year and pay him per appearance.
Dont forget how important he is in locker room.
His current contract is already performance based. From memory, he is on $2.5mil fixed with a potential of reaching $7mil if he meets certain targets.
A similar type of contract would be worth it for another season. He still has 8 goals in 15 appearances this season. That’s 1 goal every 2 games which is a good return for any forward.