AC Milan have completed their midfield department for the 2026-27 season without making any signings, following decisions made by Ruben Amorim.
There have been a lot of rumours regarding the midfield lately, with the likes of Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Yunus Musah, and Samuele Ricci all being linked with exits. There haven’t really been any concrete negotiations, though, and it seems there won’t be any.
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According to today’s edition of Gazzetta dello Sport (see photo at the bottom), the trio weren’t included on Amorim’s list of unwanted players. In other words, they have done enough to convince him and will remain for the upcoming season.
Midfield picture becoming clear
As the pink newspaper continues, this means that Milan have completed their midfield department, obviously excluding the wing-back positions. The aforementioned trio, along with Ardon Jashari, Luka Modric, Christian Comotto, and Adrien Rabiot will be the midfielders in the squad.
The idea is that Loftus-Cheek, and perhaps even Rabiot, can be used in a slightly more advanced position. That would leave Modric, Ricci, Comotto, and Jashari for the two positions in the centre, while Musah could be used a little bit everywhere depending on what is needed.
The fact that Loftus-Cheek is staying is a little surprising, as his contract with the club will expire next summer. Amorim has appreciated the Englishman’s dedication in training, seeing him as a valuable asset, especially in the attacking midfield as said.
Musah will be useful with his pace and ball-carrying skills, at least in the eyes of the manager, while Ricci is the essence of reliability.
Absolutely, f****** right! Not too sure about Musah to be honest but, Ricci and RLC totally deserve it! For the millionth time, they were never given the chances and opportunities before, and lest anyone thinks that playing a few minutes here and there, sporadically, think again cause that’s not being given a chance. They absolutely need regular playing time.
We’ve seen this script before, Jimi.
RLC’s form is inconsistent and he doesn’t stay fit and Musah makes idiotic decisions with the ball. Ricci staying is OK but where does he carve out space? Behind Rabiot and Modric and Jashari? And in what position? He’s not a progressive 6 – he just cycles the ball side to side. Not sure what his role will be …
keeping RLC and Musah, are beyond questionable choices…
RLC is versatile and good at playing between the lines, which is exactly what Amorim wants. Did you watch the Inter friendly? Based on that match I see exactly what Amorim sees in him. Also, he has like zero transfer value, so I can understand the choice to sell Fofana after a somewhat productive season and capitalize on his market value at 27 years old.
RLC has one PSG performance in him, Mat, and that’s PER SEASON. Followed by ghost stories and injuries. Every season people same the same thing about him and he doesn’t deliver.
The only reason he stays is because this club will default to keeping him and won’t be able to upgrade the midfield the way it needs to be.
Musah needs more playing time to help with his decision making.
He also needs a rigid structure and precise instructions to thrive, to limit his bad decisions, and these are the precise qualities that Amorim has been criticized for.
I’ve always thought that his best position was as a destroyer type defensive midfielder. He’s only so so on the offense.
Hopefully Amorim will finally see that and stop putting him in multiple different positions
Fofana is not part of Amorim’s project, and Modric is not playing 90 minutes every game, so Musah could ideally step in as Modric’s understudy as a defensive midfielder
musah got enough time here + atalanta,
destroyer? do u mean destroy his own defence & tactic, did u see how many time he lost his mark, bad control, bad positioning, bad pass, late pass?
he’s here just bcs he’s jeri neighbor kid, i’ll gladly take Fofana/ Pobega/ Brescianini over him
Amorim has already decided to keep Musah over Fofana, so this is a decision that Amorim made, not Cardinale. You have to ask him why he made that decision.
I suspect that Amorim’s system demands that players have this great ability to track back and play defense, and Musah can do that, Fofana, not so much.
I do remember one match with Milan where Musah was playing right back, and he tracked back and tackled this opposing player right at the goal mouth before he could get a shot off.
Pobega was a homegrown kid but never had the talent to be a starter for Milan, or, ultimately to stay in the squad. I remember many, many matches where he had a passing accuracy of 40%. Musah is much better than Pobega, no two ways about it.
Musah barely played for Atalanta, a total of only 574 minutes in 19 games.
Musah had some great matches playing for the USMNT, his best being against England, where he held Bellingham in check throughout the game and the match ended in a 0-0 draw.
For all his flaws, Gregg Berhalter was the exact type of coach with a rigid system and sets of limited instructions that benefited Musah (while strangling others). As that match showed, if he was given a task of shutting down a dangerous opposing player, he could do that.
So yeah, Musah can definitely play defense and be a destroyer. You just haven’t been paying close ttention to his overall career.
And by the way, Musah is an Italian citizen with an Italian passport, having lived in Italy up to age 9, when his parents moved to England (he was born in the USA, but his parents moved to Italy right after). He started his youth career with the local club Giorgione Calcio.
You know what I don’t understand? Players like Fofana and Nkunku – who both should have known they were being evaluated and both had the entire summer to train and be ready – throwing in mediocre shifts like that in pre-season. They should be running their butts of to secure a spot
Nkunku last ran like that 4 years ago.
😂
Welcome to Amorim Ball – where questionable decisions are a given…
There is not a one single thing about this club that is NOT a question at this point. Literally, not one single thing that provides reassurances.
2 wingbacks like Zalewski and 1 other quality would give us stability that we didn’t have last year
1 more quality CB will follow after Tomori sale
double-pivot is done with Modric, Rabiot, Jashari, Comotto, Ricci; the only positions in which I don’t understand what we are doing is CAM and ST…
we have 3 positions and only 3 players plus Chukwueze (who will split time in RAM and RWB)…
Gimenez, Nkunku, Leao, RLC are not good enough sure, but 2 transfers will not be enough… and which positions do you prioritize? CAMs?
Re-watch the Chelsea match and you’ll easily understand what Musah can offer this team that is unique relatively to other players. Chelsea pressed us down the whole first half. Zero (!!) Milan players who could beat their man to get out of the pressing. Enter Musah and it was a whole different game. He offers creative solutions in dribbling and carrying the ball up the field. I absolutely agree that he is a bad player all round (no vision, no end product, get confused), but he offers much needed dynamism in a team with the likes of Modric, Bartesaghi, Jashari, Ramos, who – with all due respect – are slowwwww and unable to beat their man.
He is the ideal counter attacking player for the 2 man midfield. Him and Modric. Musah is expected to take the ball forward and Modric should deliver the final pass. I have a feeling it will be either Ricci-Modric or Musah-Modric. Jashari will be Modric backup, won’t play with him. If you’ve seen them in friendlies, they were in the same spot most of the game, clashing with each others position.
Is this with Rabiot behind the striker? Sold? Or on the bench in favor of Musah?
Behind the striker.
Maignan- Gila, Gabbia (?), Pavlovic- Saelemaekers (?), Ricci or Musah, Modric, Bartesaghi (?)- Rabiot, Pulisic- Ramos. That’s how he sees it.
The second lineup being:
Torriani- De Winter, ???, Diawara- ??? (Terracciano),
Musah/Ricci, Ardon (Comotto), ???- Chukwueze, RLC- Camarda (?);
Like you said, no end product. No decent shot, no decent progressive pass. Just dribbles & runs & loses the ball at the end. Pretty sure that’s not the “beat the press” Amorim is looking for.
No issues here,.despite the rage bait nature of the reporting. We can’t sell and replace everyone; at some point we have to coach some performances from players, so Amorim has every right to put some faith in these guys. Let’s hope they can stay fit and deliver.
We’ll see in a few months. I think RLC is a useful option as a backup for the AMC positions, more useful than getting 10M€ for him (or less, last year of contract). Ricci and Musah can become top quality players if someone puts them in the right position and in the right tactical system.
Trash, trashier, trashiest ….take your pick as to who is which one. Although I’d say Ricci probably hasn’t gotten a proper chance out of the three.
But RLC WILL be injured as usual so I’m not sure who they have in mind realistically for that role. We can assume Jashari will have to fill that spot.
Agree – people seem to be strangely optimistic tho… so basically we’re STILL going to have zero creativity in the middle after suffering for season after season with no one who can open up a defence… One minute we’re looking at Soule Karetsas Ablejelovic Diaz now we’re stuck with RLC? I give up…
100%. like I said, I’m not sure where people draw their optimism from .
I don’t get it either 🤷♂️
I admire them alot tho lol and ofc is love to sear humble pie because it would mean the will benefit.
Otherwise, I’d have to go with what I’ve seen since these players have arrived here.
Luís Enrique got rid of players with bad attitude who didn’t fit his season at PSG and Gasperini did the same thing at Atalanta and now at Roma.
Amorim is doing the same at Milan. A lot these players need to go and I’m not disappointed with the list of names Amorim gave the club.
As Luis Enrique showed at PsG you don’t need 11 World class players to win titles. You need quality players that work well in your system and tactics.
Therefore a coach needs players that work hard in training and also has the discipline to work for the team.
I mean … Yes and no. I get it that player changes can effect certain types of changes that can benefit the team. PSG is good example as you’ve mentioned but at the same time they replaced a 200m player with a 100m player loosely speaking lol. We’re not close to getting Kvara/Dembele type replacements.
On the flip side the opposite can happen. Remember when we sold T Silva and Ibra? We lost a great deal of technical ability and quality esp given that we didn’t replace them adequately. And that’s my biggest fear especially with this ownership/management. They’ve never properly replaced any of the players they’ve sold or moved on (Kessie, Tonali, Theo are prime examples)
Keeping RLC and YM are crazy idea. RLC injury prone and where you want him to play? AMF?? He is not playmaker and not game changer, just bigman take the ball infront. Next YM, he have low football IQ, cannot make decision when to atack and defend, all he can do is running and running in the field. I hope coach RA know this and sign hjolberg after fofana out
Musah, Ricci, Loftus-Cheek, they all need to be sold.
Somewhat ok with this. Ricci and Musah I feel like just need some consistent playing time to be more solid and grow their footballing instinct. Both have great talents thay just need to be unlocked. Give them proper chances then look at winter market if it still isn’t working. RLC is so on-off. Hopefully he can be used as a sub for AMF so we get the good with less of the poor.
So at the big summit meeting, Ruben said ‘I need more players’ and Gerry said ‘You’re ‘avin’ a giraffe…’