The imminent arrivals of Marco Sportiello and Daichi Kamada show that AC Milan are attentive to the free agent market, and they could use it to strengthen their midfield.
MilanNews writes about some of the names that might appeal to Milan as they seek to add another starter-level player for the double pivot, especially given Ismael Bennacer will be out for six months.
The first is Youri Tielemans whose contract with Leicester is about to expire, and they were just relegated to the Championship. The Belgian midfielder made a total of 37 appearances and scored 4 goals this season, and he currently earns about €3m net per season.
Adrien Rabiot will leave Juventus in the summer and he is a starter not only for the Bianconeri but also for the French national team. He has quality and size, knows the Italian league well and is in his prime, but he earns €7m net per season so seems out of reach.
Ilkay Gundogan, N’Golo Kante and Toni Kroos are three big names but they will never attract the interest of the Milan ownership, who prefer to focus on younger profiles with much lower salaries.
Naby Keita will not renew with Liverpool, also because he hasn’t been part of Jurgen Klopp’s plans for some time as seen by the fact he amassed just 291 minutes of playing time in the Premier League.
In recent weeks it has been rumours that the player has been proposed to Milan but Maldini and Massara are not keen for two reasons: his salary is around €7.5m net per season and they have huge doubts about his fitness.
Ellyes Skhiri is a more interesting profile. The Tunisian midfielder will leave FC Köln and has attracted the attention of several clubs such as Rennes, Bayer Leverkusen, Sevilla and Roma. In the past he was linked with Milan, and he seems to fall within the economic and age (28) parameters.
Finally we come to Dani Ceballos, who is more of an attackong midfielder. There is no doubt about his technical qualities and he only gets €1.5m per year at Real Madrid. A few weeks ago, there was talk in Spain of an important offer from Italy for Ceballos, who knows if it could be from Milan.
