In recent weeks, rumours regarding a renewal of Mike Maignan’s AC Milan contract have been rife, and whilst the Frenchman’s deal does not expire until the summer of 2026, the Rossoneri are keen to offer him a new deal.
CalcioMercato.com writes that both Maignan and Milan have a desire to continue together. Discussions have been in the pipeline for some time, with the club keen to offer the Frenchman a deal that accurately represents his value to the club and his ability level.
Rumours stated that the goalkeeper had a net figure of €8million in mind, something that the Rossoneri has reportedly been aware of, and a figure close to their initial approximations. According to the report, the Diavolo have offered their first verbal proposal – €5m plus bonuses, for personal and team results.
Maignan and his team have not responded yet to this offer, given their expectations of a higher figure. Nonetheless, talks will continue. It is important to note that this is an initial offer. Nothing is final, and both parties may change their requests.
Bayern Munich remain in the background. However, Maignan remains focused on Milan, where he would like to stay.
5 million plus bonuses are about the right number, which would put him on the same level with Leao.
It’s Maignan’s right to ask for more, and he deserves more based on how much GKs on his level are getting paid, but Milan can’t and shouldn’t offer him that. Paying him 8+ mil a season would make him by far the highest paid player on the team and you can’t have the GK being your highest paid player.
It’s the least important and easiest position to replace. You can find just about the same production for much less money. Look at the kid at Monza or Vicario at Tottenham. He is one of the best GKs in EPL for 19 mil. At the same time ManUtd spent 50+ on Onana and he is the worst.
A GK is as good as the defense in front of him.
Inter sold the same Onana for 50+ mil, replaced him with 5,6 mil Sommer and not only their defense is better this season but it is the best in all of Europe.
If he accepts 5 mil keep him if not sell him to the highest bidder and use the money to replace him and strengthen other areas in the squad.
But it doesn’t put him on the same level as other top GKs around Europe. This is the point. His position will be that he will then not renew as he seeks to force a transfer, or at most leave on a free at the end of the contract, to a club that will pay him more. Leao salary is irrelevant for Mike. So, once again, it will come down to how much is the club willing to pay. I have a feeling that a deal can get done somewhere in the middle, which would put him at 6.5-7m, and coincidently at the same level as Leao, so that our “cap” for our best players isn’t broken and nobody has their feelings hurt.
How is Leao’s salary irrelevant to Mike’s?
As much as I criticize Leao , a GK no matter how good he is, will never be more important than a forward. Mike shouldn’t make more money than Leao on the same team. No one turns on the TV or pays for a ticket at the stadium saying I can’t wait to watch the GK play today. Forwards, strikers, .midfielders are always the ones that draw the interest of the viewer, the paying customer customer, not defenders or GK. That plays a majorbrole in the salary distribution. There is a hierarchy. That’s why I said you can’t have your GK as your highest paid player.
Mike was criminally underpaid for the time he was here, when he was injured, you saw what happened to our results. Lack of distribution, box command and game changing saves was the difference between 1 and 5th place for us. If we won 1 goal games last year with him instead of Tata, had him effectively allowing our defense to be higher up the pitch to start our build up phase, we would have done much better. We might have even successfully defended the title because not only preventing goals he would have helped us score more and preserve our outfield player’s energy by letting them stay further up the pitch. All those cumulative runs, passes and stability adds up over 40 to 50 games a year.
Even if we paid 8.5 million to each player in our starting 11, that is 94 millions euros, given the price to compete in Europe and Italy, that is a low figure. The aim is 75% for FFP on wages and transfers a year. Even if you double the figure to
187 million euros on wages alone, add 80 million in transfers, that is peanuts to garantee 1/4 finals in Europe and top 3 in Italy, perpetually.
Whoever convinced Milan fans that underpaid players is the way to succeed in this sport fooled you. Sure if questions linger regarding a players abilities and capacity to adapt to us, a bridge or first contract at 2.5 to 4 million is fair such as when he arrived. Once they perform like Mike did, there is no excuse to underpay. You get a sure deal, that garantees you can scratch him off your list of issues that need to be addressed. The income to cost ratio will speak for itself.
It costs more to find, develop, integrate and lose out on results by gambling with new players than keeping some who perform at a level few others will. Those results determine how much sponsors pay for your brand’s reputation and visibility. Getting destroyed 5-0 by Inter on the biggest stage and being eliminated this year so early, and before last year fron Europe, costs you 50 million in endorsements a season alone, we didn’t mention prize money. It is 10 to 7 million euros per position in Serie A in revenues. So what we “saved” by letting players go for nothing and selling them, cost us way more, in multiples.
“Whoever convinced Milan fans that underpaid players is the way to succeed in this sport fooled you. ” This is so true.
The person who used to convince good players to play for peanuts was fired though. He sold them on a project and they bought it. Theo for instance can make wayyyy more money than he’s making right now and a players prime years are short on average. Plus an injury can easily derail your career.ake hay….
‘You get a sure deal, that garantees you can scratch him off your list of issues that need to be addressed. The income to cost ratio will speak for itself” also this! We may have “saved” by not upping the contract for Kessie or Chalhanoglu but those have been our literal sore spots since they left. So we saved 3-5 mil on Kessie contract over 4/5 years or around 20-25 m but still have to bring in a couple players for more than that amount and who still have not yet replaced what he did. It doesn’t make sense..we could have given Snake his 0.5m per year instead of having to buy 20m Reijnders who (as much as like the guy) is nowhere near Snake’s quality. Save a little money on wages, still have to buy a whole new player who may or may not work out (as we’re seeing now) doesn’t make sense smh. Penny wise, pound foolish as they say!
I agree with most of what you’re saying in general . The club by growing also HAS to grow their wage bill as is the natural progression. But I have a feeling there’ll be more churn before they pay players.
Disagree entirely with this post from Z. Goalkeeper is by definition the most important position and the hardest to replace.
Easy to prove: Replace a player in every position with an amateur and measure the outcomes.
Actually, I think there is a general consensus (not on Sempremilan, but in the wider world of football) that GK is the most replaceable position. That is, once you’re past the handful of world class goalkeepers, the difference is negligeable. It’s why we regularly see attackers fetching 80-100m and not goalkeepers, again with one or two exceptions. Do you think United is getting good value from their purchase of Onana? Vicario was only 18.5m and look at how he’s doing with Tottenham. Of course, if we need to sell and someone wants to give us 60m or more for Mike I won’t be upset😉.
I would not call it consensus – if you can show me where that information lives I would happily agree. Always appreciate verified info here.
I understand you can get away with a slightly above average goalie (see Seba Rossi) if you have the best defense of all time in front of you. But all things being equal, it’s the most important spot. If
say your right winger has an off day, you may make it up with your mids, strikers or attacker. Your goalkeeper is off, you will not win a game even if you are dramatically better- see Loris Karius.
Nah bro..we had Dida in goal at one time We didn’t need a great goalie. The game changers were Kaka, Sheva, Seedorf and Pippo. Dida could have let 4 in we’d score 5
Your analogy is also flawed. If you replace any player position with amateurs there will be a clear drop in quality no matter the position and any team that is properly coached will take advantage of that place.on the field.
That’s in line with what I thought they would offer. 5-6mil with bonuses. No way they pay him the 7-8 they ask for.
Mike is one of Top5 best GK’s in the world currently and 6mil is fair. Of course he can earn more elsewhere and if it comes down to it hopefully we get a nice chunk of change for him.
But I’d love to see him continue with Milan for 4 more years or so.
The key question is just how good Maignon is compared to what Milan would be able to replace him with.
“Pretty good” goalkeepers, in the top 25% of a league, are not that hard to find.
A superb, world class goalkeeper, at the top 1-3 best of a league, can mean the difference between winning vs losing or tying at least 3-5 matches a season, and at least 1-2 matches in a tournament. These are difficult to find, unless you’ve got an outstanding scouting department.
If you look at Mike’s fbref numbers, and compare him to other GKs of top teams, where he leads the league is with percentage of intercepted crosses and defensive actions in the backfield. That is the world class part of his game.
He is good, but not world class in his shot blocking. If you look at his PSxG+/- /90 number, it is -0.15 and his PSxG is at 14.1. These numbers put him around 8th – 13th in Serie A, which is basically just above average, hardly world class, much less leading the league.
In fact if you look at the trend of his numbers, his shot blocking numbers have gotten much worse this year – they are his absolute worst and used to be a LOT BETTER.
So yeah, we can see that on the field. Lots of times, he looks just frozen in place and doesn’t even dive for the ball. He has made some world class saves, but really, he needs to be making more great saves in order to justify paying him a huge salary.
I think that is a missing piece of why Milan has been dropping points. People really haven’t noticed that Mike has gotten significantly WORSE this year with his shot blocking.
, I think Milan shouldn’t pay much more than 6 mill a season. There’s several GKs out there that are either better shot blockers or nearly as good as he is. Sell him for 100 million and get a better shot blocker.
Yep.. weirdly I’d have to agree with Gandalf here and the stats probably check out. He’s good but there are other ways around what he brings. I think the whole ball playing goalie is a phase. You need enough skill on the ball but GKs are still primarily shot stoppers. Inter has a shot stopper and doesn’t rely on a ball playing goalie like us and Man Utd for instance. Yet they’re quite effective with their setup. Also, if we had to sell Mike it had to be to a team that plays the ball out he back like us
Guys his saves in last year champions league last 16, quarter finals literally Milan got 40m just from these matches. Even the last match in champions league this year against Newcastle he saved a goal from nowhere, now play atleast 2 matches in Europa league, the money we get will be because of great work from Maignan, tomori.
Without knowledge, some guys are saying we can easily replace like Inter. But you can see the difference with yan sommer(he dont play with foot, save percentage is not good)and is not same level as Onana. Likes of Onana is 50m then to find someone like Magic Mike it’s literally you will need to pay 70/90m.
You can argue about vicario, but he is not same level and not in his prime but still young. The difference is you cannot ask a player to take less Even though he is in prime, Leader of team(even during Zlatans presence after too).
Have you ever seen Thibault courtois, alisson becker, Pepe reina, De gea were sold during their prime and what they have achieved during big stage games, its impossible Real madrid win Champions league without Thibault courtois. The number of saves he made against Liverpool is insane for final.
If we dont want to win any cups and like to become a feeder club for top teams then it should be ok.
Magic Mike has to stay in this team especially next 5years of his prime if have win, this is clear during our scudetto season also.
Comparing the salary with Leao, He is still young 24/25years compared to Mike 29years.
Mike deserves 7m minimum at Milan, outside he can get atleast 10 to 15m .
Literally he is the best shot stopper in top 5european leagues for last 2years, he saved many penalties and against top players like Salah etc.,
Whoever saying he can be replaced easily by 6m/20m , please tell the drugs you are taking. I will take the same
“Without knowledge, some guys are saying we can easily replace like Inter. But you can see the difference with yan sommer(he dont play with foot, save percentage is not good)and is not same level as Onana”
Bro this is patently false. For folks that haven’t watched alot of football outside of Serie A and even Prem, Sommer has been one of the best GK in the Bundesliga for the last 10 years. Out of Onana, Mike and Sommer this season, Sommer has the best save percentage over the other two with Mike the worse of the 3. In pretty much most categories both Sommer and Onana (even at Man Utd) are better than Mike eg shot saved, +/-, error rate, clean sheets per 90min etc. The one good thing Mike leads is in progressive yards and that’s because he punts the ball out on occasion to our wingers and/or we get pressured on our slow build up at the back.
“Have you ever seen Thibault courtois, alisson becker, Pepe reina, De gea were sold during their prime ” No, but none of these guys were injury prone in their prime either
“its impossible Real madrid win Champions league without Thibault courtois.” And yet they won recently in 14,16,17,18 WITHOUT Courtois (granted he was big during the 2022 final). They won most of their UCLs recently with a keeper most would say here is worse than Mike ie Keylor Navas. Hence why people would say he can be replaced….maybe not “easily” be he can be
If Mike leaves witch I don’t want, I want Di Greogorio from Monza in his place