AC Milan are the current league-leaders in Serie A, but a report has claimed that additions are needed to seriously fight for the Scudetto.
Admittedly there have been only seven games of the 2025-26 league season so far, and the road to May is still very long. Massimiliano Allegri is preaching calm and they continue to take things game by game, but with five wins in seven they have found themselves at the summit.
Read SempreMilan ad-free and get access to exclusive news. Click here for a free trial!
Extra pieces needed?
Today’s edition of Tuttosport (via MilanNews) reports that, to fight for the title all the way, Allegri will also need a helping hand from the mercato. He definitely needs another centre-back, at least in the eyes of the newspaper.
They state that a quality and experienced centre-back is lacking, because Koni De Winter and David Odogu are currently behind the starting trio of Fikayo Tomori, Matteo Gabbia and Strahinja Pavlovic. The Belgian has league experience but is young, while Odogu is more a signing for the future.
Initially, Milan were supposed to play with four at the back, but now that Allegri has found the right balance with a three-man defence, they absolutely need an additional player capable of playing in that area of the pitch.
Another signing on the right flank could also be needed, but only if Zachary Athekame doesn’t prove himself a reliable replacement for Alexis Saelemakers between now and January. As a reminder, Alex Jimenez was allowed to go to Bournemouth late in the window, and wasn’t truly replaced.
The Swiss defender was called up to the senior national team for the first time during the last break, has appeared a bit hesitant in his first few appearances. He has plenty of time to prove he can be a capable replacement for Saelemaekers, but a Scudetto race waits for nobody.
Quick comment on De Winter…he looked anything but hesitant against Fiorentina. He shut down the attacks on his side of the pitch in the final minutes of the game after coming on.
I think the writer was referring to Athekame, since the sentence starts with “The Swiss defender”. De Winter is Belgian and I agree was he great when he came on
I’m encouraged too by what I’ve seen from DeWinter. He needs minutes.
I really like De Winter, i wish to see more of him (maybe against Pisa?). I don’t think athakame had such a bad game against fiorentina, i thought he was quite decent, our issue in that game was having saelamakers as the second striker.
The issue is depth and what happens in the event of multiple injuries more than De Winter’s capabilities. If one of our 3 central defenders get laid off, De Winter will step in and that’s it, no other experienced defender for the bench. The flip side of the argument is how will we know if we dont have a gem on hand if somebody like Odogu does not get a toe in. Barca for instance is littered with La Masia products (Cubarsi is still only 18) and we will never know if we dont put a bit of faith in these youngsters. Having said that we 2 to 3 more players for all 3 areas of the game. We are stretched and injuries can throw your game plan off at the worst of times.
Milan dont need more players. We need to get the benched ones more minutes.
De Winter, Athekame, Bartesaghi, Ricci, RLC, Nkunku are all players that need more minutes to not stagnate. If we had European football we would need one more CB and one more cmf but right now this squad will suffice.
If we get back to CL its better to focus on next summers mercato. By then we know if its worth going forward with players like Athekame , Odugo, Nkunku, Gimenez and RLC. Or if they should be upgraded.
Unfortunately next summer we will be selling players to make up for CL short fall in budget.
So if we need to increase depth next summer we will have to cash in on a few of our jewels and invest in cheap/free players.
It seems we will need about 80m to cover the CL money.
Absolutely we need a CB. right now we only have De Winter as back up, Udogu is basically a primavera/Futuro player
Perhaps just sign an older experienced pro to be a back up anchor for Gabbia.
The wing back situation is unbelievable considering we had Theo (made for the role), Salaemakers and Jimenez (capable of playing on both wings as backup).
Athakame is not ready, and we won’t know for years if he’s good enough.
Bartesaghi is doing admirably but is playing out of position and will suffer against the better teams.
Estupinan is very average and very injury prone.
Then of course we need a striker but we bought Nkunku.
Why on earth we didn’t even keep 1 of Morata, Abraham, Jovic, Colombo etc is baffling if we couldn’t purchase a player.
The team is doing well and allegri has steadied the ship but this poorly planned and poorly constructed paper thin squad is already showing cracks
Terra is scoring for fun as CB/WB in Cremonese
Thats good i guess
he’s still ours (on loan) he can be another Sael/ Gabbia when he come back (stronger)
he can play CB/RWB/LWB/DM
Sign Lodi(preferably, or Regulon for free now, and use Bartesaghi as a CB sub – and we are covered. Bartesaghi seems better fitted as a CB due to his defensive capabilities and height, he has played there many times for Futuro team. Lodi comes with an Italiand passport and has international experience, they should get him now.
We need both a RWB and LWB plus a CB and a CF. I don’t think Athekame was the right choice and I don’t know why they didn’t keep Jimenez and Theo.
We had those positions well covered until they sold these 2 players. Smh
Attitude issues… if u follow Milan, u know.
If you follow Milan you will know that Jimenez has been excellent for us and very adaptable.
Never a mention of any attitude issues over his couple of seasons, quite the opposite, the managers always complimented him on how committed he was.
It’s easy to through dirt when you want to push someone out to earn cash
There were multiple articles citing disciplinary issues with Alex Jimenez. As for Theo, that ship also sailed under a burned bridge…
Just like Kalulu is injury prone, tonali is ordinary, Thiaw is error prone, Reijnders wanted to leave etc etc
People on here will buy the narrative or make it up.
It’s like listening to trump supporters
I’ve never read a single report about disciplinary issues with Jimenez before him being late to training and then sold.
Perhaps they just want the money
we need experienced CB, Winter is average & Odogu not ready, someone like Djimsiti/ Skriniar to be our new Kjaer,
& a ST, we’ve only Santi, hard-working but not scoring, w/ short budget the only hope we’ve is Tudor keep benching Vlahovic then use Allegri to lower his demand, we can get him cheap in Jan or free next season