Serbian striker Luka Jovic is getting closer to earning a new contract with AC Milan after scoring an acceptable amount of goals in his first season with the club.
As has been reported by Pianeta Milan, Jovic is now looking more likely than not to be a Milan player come the 2024/25 season.
He was signed on a free transfer in the final hours of the 2023 summer transfer window with the job of scoring enough goals to convince Milan that he should stay beyond the one year that he is contracted to the club for.
It has been a mixed time for Jovic at Milan but it seems that he is doing enough to ensure he can stay. He has managed to score eight times in 24 appearances which, for a backup striker, is not bad going at all.
One concern is that whilst he is very effective from the bench, he has been very poor when starting games. This means that Milan are at a real disadvantage when Olivier Giroud does not start a game.
Despite this, Milan are expected to exercise the option in the contract to keep him for another year, something they can do for three consecutive seasons.
Mixed season? On
I was a skeptic when he was first signed on. Worried he’d be a cancer in the locker room. For the minutes he’s gotten, he’s exceeded my expectations.
If he’s not asking too much I’d resign him.
I hope this is just a rumor because this is a bad idea. Jovic is better when playing with another striker and Milan plays with one striker in a 4231 or 433 formation.
He doesn’t fit the same way Piatek didn’t fit play as a lone striker. I don’t get why Milan is making these basic mistakes with strikers. Sigh!
Artem Dovbyk, Jonathan David, Goncalo Ramos, Benjamin Sesko, Plavidis, Santiago Gimenez, and Youssef En-Nesyri are strikers who can play as a lone striker.
So many options yet Milan want to fit a square peg in a round hole. Unbelievable if this is true about Jovic signing.
From many strikers mentioned, is there any striker who’s valued more or less same as Jovic.
Only En-Nesyri, and that guy should stay away
What does it even mean that a striker cannot play as a lone striker?
LOL. Are you serious? Really?
Jovic is a classic example of a striker who needs a partner up front to share the burden and make space for him. When he’s alone between the opponent’s CBs he is absolutely useless.
Jovic is an elite striker.
He can play by himself and alongside others.
Elite players are not these rigid, one dimensional players like in computer games.
Besides Jovic does his best work in the box and lone strikers tend to get more opportunities in the box being alone and all.
Add RLC whose been making runs from deep, and Leao and Pulisic, and I have to question if people are even watching games….
“Jovic is an elite striker.
He can play by himself and alongside others.
Elite players are not these rigid, one dimensional players like in computer games.”
LOL. Once again you go with the “he plays as a professional so he’s one of the 0.000001% footballers ie. an absolute legend, a GOAT practically”. Sure, he’s elite compared to me and my teammates but we’re playing in the lower divisions. Is Jovic “an elite striker” compared to Lautaro Martinez, Lewandovski, Giroud, Haaland, Mbappe? No. H*ll no. Can those guys play as a lone striker? Yes. They’ve proven they can. They can be be relied on. Jovic? Eh, show us the evidence he’s “an elite striker” when he’s the lone striker. I dare you. 🙂
“Besides Jovic does his best work in the box and lone strikers tend to get more opportunities in the box being alone and all.”
LOL!!!!!! WHAT A LOAD OF BS!!!!!
Strikers – ESPECIALLY Jovic-type of strikers! – get more opportunities when there’s another striker drawing the attention of the CBs to the OTHER striker and that leaves the space needed him to operate. Just look at the goals he has scored.
“Elite players are not these rigid, one dimensional players like in computer games.”
Say that to Suso, Messias, Chukwueze etc. I mean, based on your logic, they should be “elite players” too and they’re faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar from “one dimensional players”, right? 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
Jovic already here, means we won’t need to pay any transfer fee, and he got one season of adaptation period. And he is still 27. I do believe if he can keep his head down and working hard, he will come out better next season.
None of the players you mentioned will come for free. And if Jovic really leave, we will likely need to get 2 striker, so it will reduce the funds we have to buy a striker (which is already limited) into buying 2.
Say what you want but 8 goals in first season, for a striker that is not a first choice is pretty darn decent. He is on 9 goals contribution in 971 minutes he played, means 1 goal contribution every 108 minutes.
I sort of agree but for me the priority this summer should be about getting the squad down to a manageable size and sorting out injuries.
We have used 36 (THIRTY SIX) players this season. There’s international sides who have used less!
We have something like 25 players out on loan (this is purely going off Wikipedia but it’s almost impossible to work out who is on our books).
We have a crop of youth players who we presumably need to plan for at some stage.
Then we need to sign 2-3 (or whatever) new players to improve the squad.
It’s an absolute mess. Millions wasted on hugely expensive players/employees/assets/whatever you want to call them.
It would get most CEO’s sacked.
If you take my above estimates it seems like we have about 50-60 players we need to ‘deal with’ this summer.
And by ‘dealing with’ I mean:
– keep;
– sell/release; or
– loan.
I think the squad needs to be reduced to 25 and we should aim to only have players on loan who have a future at the club.
That means in an ideal world we’d be selling/letting go about 30 players this summer. (THIRTY!).
For me the first team squad should look like this (and anyone not mentioned either at the club or on loan is sold):
Mike Maignan
Marco Sportiello
Antonio Mirante
Davide Bartesaghi
Théo Hernandez
Fikayo Tomori
Matteo Gabbia
Simon Kjær
Jan-Carlo Simić
Filippo Terracciano
Davide Calabria
Alessandro Florenzi
Ismaël Bennacer
DM
Tijjani Reijnders
Yunus Musah
Ruben Loftus-Cheek
Kevin Zeroli
AM
Daniel Maldini
Christian Pulisic
Rafael Leão
Noah Okafor
CF
Francesco Camarda
I can understand a lot of the concerns you raise about us having a bloated squad.
But the strategy you are advocating of a very lean squad is running counter to what almost every moderate to big club is doing across Europe. By contrast to established players; youth players are very cheap. Most clubs like to have many irons in the fire. If you’ve got a lot of players out on loan. You’ve got a lot of chances that some of them will break through and either:
– surge in value
– or become a key part of the first team squad.
The other big group of loan players we have are experienced players (usually bought cheaply) like Origi, Ballo-Touré etc. Again these are really gambles that didn’t pay off.
The lean squad approach doesn’t have a safety net.
Barca (squad size 21) , Real (squad size 24), and Man City (squad size 23) have smaller, leaner squads.
What’s the plan here?
Plan for half the squad getting injured?
Rotate 7 players at once?
Constantly rotate the CBs (even though they do least running and should probably never be rotated…)?
And why do you have a particular preference towards a larger squad (with 25 random players on loan)?
I mean there’s two responses:
a) be annoyed; OR
b) be indifferent,
but to defend it?
It always surprises me how angry people get when I criticise the transfer market.
They get far angrier than when people criticise the manager or players or even the owners.
Note for the situation to have arisen everyone is to blame including Maldini and Massaro who were responsible for many of the players we have on loan.
It’s an entire system that is at fault and Serie A is one of the worst offenders and Italy haven’t made it out of the group stages at world cups since 2006.
The Spanish league is hands down the best run league and a key part of that is that squad sizes are generally less than 25 (and players are actually numbered 1-25).
Sure they’ve also got their second teams but they’ve also got coherent squads.
Italian squads are generally a mess. And Milan’s squad is a huge mess. I can’t see how anyone would think otherwise when faced with those numbers.
“Jovic is better when playing with another striker and Milan plays with one striker in a 4231 or 433 formation. ”
This. 100%.
As others have said, I have doubts on whether he can play in our system as a sole striker. Yes, he’s scored a few goals but also failed hard in other games.
Even Chaka Traore scored a few goals and he’s benched in Serie B. We cannot afford an inconsistent sole striker.
If Pioli starts using Ok4 in his position, that is telling on who the coach trusts.
Personally, I’d rather take Petagna or Belotti than Jovic. It might be harsh but at least they would fit in with the system and I know what they can deliver.
Maybe they wanna sign Dzeko, Alvaro Morata, Icardi, or even Lukaku as they’re still scoring and could be paired with Jovic or placed as single CF upfront
It’s a tough decision. He probably has done enough to earn another season as he has done well off the bench. But he does seem more suited to a 2 striker formation and seems to struggle when he needs to play as a CF from the start. Regardless of the situation with Giroud’s renewal, our future formation really depends on if Leao stays. While he is in the squad; it seems essential to play some form of 4231, 433 or even 343. Where you need a CF play to complete the frontline.
Hopefully there are some fixtures remaining where he can get another chance to stand in for Giroud.
Maldini’s heir.
It’s not letting me reply in line to your last comment.
Our current squad is 26 senior players with the team. Not much different to the examples you gave.
It’s bloated slightly by having a 4th goal keeper who is really still Primavera and a player like Caldara who we want to sell but is also handy for UEFA squad list rules due to his nationality.
Many of the loan players examples you sight like Origi, Ballo-Toure etc.
The club is trying to sell but it usually requires a loan then obligation to buy arrangement to move experienced ( higher salary) players.
That is just the way the market works.
I’m neither annoyed or indifferent.
But accepting the reality of how clubs need to use the market and gamble on a lot of players.