Niclas Füllkrug started well at AC Milan, but with each passing game his future beyond May becomes less and less certain.
As Calciomercato.com write, Massimiliano Allegri highlighted the need for a natural striker in the summer, a target man to be the focal point of the attack. He wanted a player with characteristics that Füllkrug has, and he arrived on loan in January hoping to be a mid-season fix.
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Still waiting
So far, Füllkrug has one goal: in the closing minutes of the match against Lecce on January 18th. It was a header from a Saelemaekers cross from the right side, a goal that is probably exactly what the coach had drawn up in his mind.
However, it didn’t prove to be much of a spark. In the next five games, the German only played snippets and has not yet started a match at home. The only game he played from minute one was in Florence against Fiorentina (before being substituted in the 60th minute).
After a difficult first half of the season in the Premier League, Füllkrug sees the Milan move as the perfect opportunity to relaunch. Not only that, but the option to buy is set at €5m, so in theory he wouldn’t need to do anything ridiculous to convince the management.
At present, given the lack of goals and the fact that Allegri clearly doesn’t see him as a starter, it is ‘unlikely’ that the 33-year-old will remain at the club beyond the end of the season. Who Milan turn to then remains to be seen, with Moise Kean linked most recently.
Hard to impress with 15 minute cameos as and only a single start against Fiorentina …
He was never going to be anything other than an impact sub, so whilst it may be hard to impress in 15 mins, that’s exactly what he needs to do if he’s going to get a contract. Milan would have done an awful lot better to sign Tammy Abraham, but hindsight is a wonderful thing….
In the one start he set up Pulisic about 4 times but he couldn’t convert.
I don’t understand why we keep seeing matches with Leao starting and looking lost as a striker.
Leao I can understand on same levels but how about Nkunku starting over Füllkrug?!!!! That makes zero sense.
*some levels…
Having the nerve to say this after we just watched yet another brain dead failure of trying to force puli and Leao to play up top together is PATHETIC. We all see our link up play and chances immediately improve when a real striker is on the pitch, so WHY?!?!?! Why is allegri so damn stubborn he refuses to accept reality? We need a real #9 up top. How many games is he gonna cost ut by trying to force a puli leao combo up top that has NEVER FREAKING WORKED!? Allegri handed inter the title, make no mistake…
Jovic would have been so good this season.
And we could have kept him for very little. No transfer fee. All he wanted was the security of a 2 year deal instead of another 1 year contract.
But Allegri wouldn’t have played him anyway so… 🤷♂️
De winter didn’t impress when stated sparingly, he only got to his best when he started consistently, 15mins game time isn’t enough to judge a player and is even an excuse to ditch the player, Alegri is the culprit here.
Correct
De Winter was solid at Genoa and is 23 years old so it was obvious he needed time. Fullkrug is 33 and tanked at West Ham. He doesn’t need time, he’s not good enough.
This one doesn’t deserve to wear our jersey he can go even today we are not going to miss him
RLC can also be used as a hold-up muscle guy up front…
the issue is that we don’t know how to play with Leao and Puli together… Leao yesterday was mostly held up by 2-3 defenders in the penalty box…
the current Napoli formation is what we should be striving for… 3-4-2-1 is the ideal formation for us, it allows our best players: Leao and Puli to have some distance and space to do their thing… Gimenez and another ST in the summer will fix that issue upfront, but in the meantime Fulkrug should be tested there
Fulkrug (Gimenez)
Leao(Nkunku) – Pulisic(RLC)
Barte – Modric – Rabiot – Saelemakers
(Estupinan – Jashari – Ricci/Fofana – Athekame)
You are benching Modrić?
My bad I need to get my eyes checked 😂
Origi, Fullkrug, Lazetic, Nkunku, Okafor, Gimenez, so many names of players who they bring for forward option. And still after Ibra and Giroud – no proper central forward.
This Why we need to change the Technical Managers.
One of the problems is that Leão is pretty stagnant in the middle of the field. Move him out wide and he knows what to do. There are so few options with only two up top in part as ACM play so slow. Teams have gotten smart and seem to have a defender playing as a bit of a sweeper. ESPN just had a segment on the fall off of Serie A. Now this year part of it is the teams that made the CL besides Inter and Napoli aren’t great. That said, Napoli was eliminated and Inter is on the verge of being eliminated. Football has changed, but many teams haven’t. You may start to see Roma and Como, but who have progressive managers start to move up in the standing.
Allegri playing without striker and using Leao as false 9 is the problem from day one. My question to every Milan fan is this. How did Leao become popular in Milan and was he playing as a striker or from left wing? Answer is from Left wing do why is Allegri wasting that opportunity in every game? Allegri selection of positions is milan problem not any player. A player must be in the box always unlike last night whenever there waa crossing no striker.
Because Allegri is a chicken. He will not give up at 3 defenders and 3 midfielders in the same formation.
Hey Max, Fulkrug is the only striker we have right now who can score from crosses. Do you want to force Leao into that position? Max thought smartly.
There were a few decent crosses into the penalty box on Sunday but no striker to convert them. Füllkrug would have scored a couple from those chances no one were now even remotely close to.
You can’t expect wingers to act like actual strikers inside the penalty box and you do need real strikers against the “park the bus” teams. FFS, why won’t Allegri ever learn from his mistakes?
Even with his scarce minutes he’s been able to outperform Nkunku 100-0.