AC Milan are braced for an offer from Manchester City for Tijjani Reijnders, who could end up becoming the club’s record sale.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) write this morning, it hasn’t been an easy week for Tijjani Reijnders or for Manchester City. On Wednesday night, the Dutchman failed to make his usual impact and Milan lost the Coppa Italia final to Bologna.
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Then, yesterday, Pep Guardiola’s team lost to Crystal Palace in the final of the FA Cup, thus closing the season with just one title, the Community Shield, the equivalent of the Supercoppa Italiana. In short, the same haul as Reijnders in 2024-25, even if City still have the Club World Cup.
Reijnders wouldn’t play in it with Milan, but the Manchester club would like the Dutch international to be in America. In fact, Pep Guardiola has put him at the top of the list of purchases for next season, with the hope of having him as soon as possible to take him to the United States.
For this reason, the first offer for Reijnders will arrive from England this week, and it will be worth just over €50m. Then, the ball will be in Milan’s court to make their intentions clear.
Plenty of leverage
With Reijnders having signed a renewal until 2030 just a few months ago, the Rossoneri do not believe they are with their backs to the wall, also because Tiji himself – although excited by Pep’s courtship – is not the type to push for a sale.
He is doing very well in Milan and, if the deal does not materialise, he would not make a drama out of it. Thus, the Rossoneri will sit down to listen to offers only if they are close to €70m, and without particular haste.
The eventual, substantial capital gain would most likely be entered in the 2025-26 budget, a year that seriously risks being experienced without participation in the European competitions with the resulting spin-offs in terms of revenues.
In short, every euro of capital gain (Reijnders has a residual value of €12m in the accounts) would be useful to cover the hole created by the failure to qualify for Europe. This, however, clashes a bit with the timing thought up by City, who want him for the Club World Cup.
Would the Citizens change their target? Unlikely, because Reijnders is Guardiola’s obsession. Therefore, they would need to raise their offer, and it cannot be ruled out that in the coming weeks the race could also expand to other contenders, such as Real Madrid.
At that point, the midfielder’s price could rise further and set a record in the history of Milan’s sales, beating Kakà’s record, sold in 2009 for €67m.
Unless Real Madrid is planning to sell Bellingham, I don’t see why they would go for Reijnders.
Jude Bellingham can do almost everything Reijnders can do, while Reijnders can’t or won’t do all the stuff Bellingham does. Add to that that Bellingham is much younger and thus has a higher ceiling.
What Real Madrid needs (depending on their system) is a deeplying midfielder able to pass the ball and dictate the tempo, like what Kroos used to do.
“Unless Real Madrid is planning to sell Bellingham, I don’t see why they would go for Reijnders.”
The best clubs have world-class subs for each position too. Competition is good. Why wouldn’t they go for Tjj? They’d get him for peanuts and his salary request will be modest too. He’d settle for leftover minutes too to get there. It’s a win-win deal for Real & Tijj. Only losers would be Milan (and maybe ManCity).
Agree 100%
Milan don’t build around their stars. The only reason they haven’t sold the likes of Theo and Leao is because there have been no suitable offers.
Once the offers for Reijnders hit the sweet spot, he’s gone. Can’t blame him for leaving either – fantastic player who deserves to compete for actual trophies worth a d@mn in a team full of talent run by competent directors – everything that Milan is not.
But what does it say about Milan. Surrender of any kind of ambition and logic.
“Once the offers for Reijnders hit the sweet spot, he’s gone. ”
LOL. You’re giving our management too much credit here. We all know they will accept the very first offer. Whether it’s someone’s grandma or 50M€, they will accept it.
50mil doesn’t cover their @$$es. 100 mil does. I think 90+ does it.
Tell that to them. They only see PROFIT from the sale and they don’t care how much they could get. A profit is a profit for them. Even when it’s 1M€ instead of 100M€. Bankers… Fng bankers who don’t even understand the basics.
I hope he realizes he’ll be playing backup to Rodri.
Going to one of the top teams in the world means accepting that you will not play every game. They have 2 WC players for each position. So they lose nothing when rotating players. unlike us. Camavinga, Modric, Pedri, Sane, Bernardo Silva are all being used as subs lately. All would be starters at Milan. Top teams no longer have a starting 11. They’ve built super squads with very few missing pieces that are plugged at each transfer window.