AC Milan have been hit by waves of injuries in recent weeks which is complicating Stefano Pioli’s plans ahead of a crucial stretched of games.
Pietro Mazzara writes in his column for MilanNews that Mike Maignan, Davide Calabria, Alessandro Florenzi, Simon Kjaer, Theo Hernandez, Alexis Saelemaekers, Junior Messias and Divock Origi have all come down with issues in addition to the already long-term absentee Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
All these players have been victims of muscle problems, some more serious than other, but the piece explains that the winter World Cup has a big part to play.
Due to the pause from November until the new year, teams are being forced to play a lot of games in a short space of time and they in essence do not train. They accumulate a lot of kilometres run and therefore muscle stress, they have a day with lighter work and then they are already in an intense final training session due to playing in midweek.
Until November 13, when everything will stop for a month and a half, it will become apparent the players who have been rested perhaps as a precaution in order not to run the risk of a more serious injury that would make them miss the tournament.
Another result from the condensed schedule is that if a player is out for two or three weeks, they miss five or six games and this leads the coach to have to make others work overtime.
World cup schedule at winter is just beyond dumb. And there’s Nations League that put a lot of stress for players 🤦♂️
I blame UEFA and FIFA for this inhuman tight schedule.
Considering our injury history.. To be honest, if we can afford CR7, I think we should get him. We lack a finisher and CR7 is the best there is and available as well. He is aching for UCL football and Milan needs a player like him.
Now all it comes down to is finances. We can offer him a short term contract that we can afford and see how it goes since CR7 was already offered to us.
I know.. This blog is full of mindless haters.. but CR7 is still a beast at peak physical condition. There’s still a year and half in his legs and Milan needs a champion up front.
Remember.. he is 37, scored 18 goals and 3 assists in 27 appearances in EPL and 6 in UCL with 7 appearances. And damn the assists would’ve been at least over 20 if Manu had semi decent finisher considering the chances he created.
Goals per match of a 27 y/o CR7 in 21/22 season was 0.60
BTW… our highest goals per match on 21/22 was 0.32, the season we won scudetto.
The only player who did better was Zlatan, 15 goals in 18 matches back in 20/21.
We need cr7 and we should check if he is available and willing to sacrifice money over UCL football one last time.
*37 year old
Considering our injury history.. CR7 will be injured if we sign him…
Im not saying that he wouldnt be able to offer anything to the squad which he clearly would be able to do but he has an exorbitant salary and talking about aquirring c.ronaldo simply isnt realistic or for that matter very sensible from an economic stand point.
26,8 mil GBP for the 2022-23 season whch equates to 30.5mil euros.
Does this seriously sound remotely plausible ? no it doesnt and that is even without considering potential sign on fees for the player and his agent, let alone man utd will most likely demand a sign on fee for the player. He has a contract expiring in 2023 but man utd even has an option for a further year. Add to that poli puts the team ahead of the individual and whether ronaldo would fit in to such system is questionable.
“man utd will most likely demand a transfer fee…..”
@Martin Bernhard, You made some good points, and obviously CR7 has attitude issues because he has a very strong will to play. Considering how good of a man manager Pioli is, I hope it wont be much of a trouble, I mean Pioli managed Zlatan.. lol
Of course Manu will demand transfer fee but the situation they are in, I think it wont be much as ten hag wants to offload him badly.
As for Salary, we can just make an offer and see how it turns out? At this stage in his career, money may not be his priority because Qatari club was there with a ton of it for him. he refused. That probably means he values UCL football more than Money which he has tons of by now and we can offer him that. And we lack exactly someone like cr7 who always wants to score and CAN score goals.
The fun fact about CR7 is, the money we will spend will eventually return almost immediately. CR7 still is one of the biggest names in football and we can utilize it. Also, yes he has attitude issues, but he is also a good team player who inspires the team. I still remember Portugal’s euro.
So if there is a chance that CR7 is available, we should at least give a try I think.
I agree to the extent that Ronaldo deffently still has a huge name amongst fans so he would immediately generate advertisement money
but even if he was willingly accepting a lower wage its unlikely he would accept something like a quarter of his current salary and that is exactly what he would have to settle with to make a move happen.
In regard of qatari offers there could be various reasons for him to refusing offers from there like for example the level of the league or even the fact that he might not want to support a currupt regime by playing there. Ronaldo comes to my mind as a player that really cares about his image.
Add to the before menntioned man utd paid 15 mil last year (+ sign on fees?) and by january 2023 will have paid 45 mil in wages which will make an at minimum 60 mil in costs so i dont see them selling him for peanuts if they actually wants to minmize their losses.
In the end though if milan could persuade him to accept at minimum a quarter of his current salary i wouldnt oppose it either as he is a great player regardless of his age but i seriously doubt it is in the pipeline to ever happen.
I totally agree with you but there are so many things to consider on that..I also think CR7 would consider playing with a team in the UCL over money !! After all CR7 has a lot of money in the bank .
There must be something wrong with the way that we train and match players. The schedule so far has not been that hard.