Paris Saint-Germain could soon begin talks with AC Milan over a swap deal that would see Gianluigi Donnarumma return to the club, a journalist has claimed.
Donnarumma is a player whose future at PSG could soon come into some doubt, according to Jonathan Johnson in his exclusive CaughtOffside column, because he is yet to live up to expectations and the Ligue 1 side may look to move him on.
The journalist thinks that one deal to look out for in the coming months involves the possibility of Donnarumma going back to Milan – the club that he controversially left two years ago – and Mike Maignan.
Maignan would definitely be an upgrade for PSG given he is now regarded as being among the best goalkeepers in the world, and he knows the club well given he grew up in the city and was there from 2009-2015.
However, Donnarumma’s exit is still a sore subject for many Milan fans, as seen by the hostile reception he got playing for Italy on international duty at San Siro during the recent break.
Johnson said: “As recently reported, there were discussions during the summer about Gianluigi Donnarumma being one of the players on offer to Manchester City as PSG tried to sign Bernardo Silva.
“Obviously that didn’t happen, but I definitely think PSG would be open to considering a re-jig in the goalkeeper department soon. Keylor Navas will be out of contract at the end of this season, while Donnarumma, being a fairly high-profile goalkeeper could probably attract a significant transfer fee.
“I definitely think that Donnarumma is a player PSG could look to cash in on – when you look at some of his recent performances, notably in last week’s defeat against Nice in Ligue 1, he is still very uncomfortable with the ball at his feet, which is something Luis Enrique really wants to see from his goalkeepers.
“So in the long term I think PSG will consider other options unless he really makes an exponential improvement with the ball at his feet, and on the evidence we’ve seen so far that looks unlikely.
“In terms of finding a buyer for Donnarumma, I don’t think it’s too much of a concern because he remains a fantastic shot stopper.
“If your style of play is not necessarily that geared around the goalkeeper contributing to the build-up play, then he’d be a tempting option.
“Of course that’s an increasingly important part of the game, but it doesn’t mean every club is going to be making that a priority when they’re looking at signing a goalkeeper.
“It’s something that remains more of a personal preference for the manager, and it is true that Luis Enrique likes that from his goalkeepers, but Donnarumma remains a fantastic shot-stopper and I’d estimate his value is still around €50m.
“Of course he’s on a very nice wage in Paris, even if not quite in the same league as PSG’s top talents, so that could still be something that would be pretty considerable for other teams around Europe to pay.
“One interesting possibility, and it is just a possibility for the time being, would be for PSG to repatriate their former youth team player Mike Maignan. The Frenchman is now at Donnarumma’s former club AC Milan, having made his reputation at Lille.
“He’s now France’s No.1 and and we’ve seen the French core at PSG growing rapidly with the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele, Randal Kolo Muani and Bradley Barcola, so it’s becoming more important for PSG to have French players in key positions.
“I certainly think they will look at the goalkeeper position in the next year or so, and it’s worth pointing out that they did look for a little while at Hugo Lloris, but he’s not much better with the ball at his feet than Donnarumma.
“Still, there is value to be had from letting Donnarumma go, and even if it doesn’t mean a club coming in and paying a fee outright for him, I think they could potentially target someone like Maignan and try to do a swap deal.”
No, thanks, you can keep him.
If P$$$G ever looks to offload Dollar he will end up in merde camp. Juve been after that boi for a long time and Szczesny isnt getting younger.
Milan will never pay the wages of Dollar, that ship sailed
But will we pay the wages of Maignan? He’s asking for 10m. If we give him that it would make the entire reason “Dollar” left Milan a moot point, since at the time he was asking for 8m. Unlike some people, I don’t place the blame on us not getting any financial benefit from Donnarumma’s departure solely on Donnarumma. The club had the opportunity to sell him the summer before. Same thing re “Kashie”. The club always has the option of selling on time. Anyway, to the point, if Donnarumma is valued at 50m and Mike at 80m, I would strongly consider taking Donnarumma and 30m for Mike. Gigio would have to lower his salary to 8m at least, but we’d get a great shot stopper, primavera graduate and Italy no. 1 in return. It could be a great redemption story.
I agree. I would just ask 40+Donnarumma. Reading the pathetic comments. Yes, he was a dhead that he left but still. If Mike asks for same money or more, what is the difference? Oh yeah, Donnarumma is actually a Milan product, Italian and homegrown in any competition on the planet.
Milan isnt breaking their salary cap for anyone. Not in the next few years..
I recon not until we have a new stadium
i know you dont have any dignity and you spend your time cussing Pioli and Milan but I can guarentee you the San Siro wont welcome him back at all
Are you kidding?
Dollarumma asked 12m not 8m and 10m for riola
only 2seasons contract . Milan agreed to pay 7m and also his age is 21 at that moment.played just 1good season for milan and that too only in serie A.
Magic Mike asked 8 to 10m and he will not leave for free don’t worry, he is not dollarumma.
He is playing for 2.5m, thats crazy given his level.
Maignan already has shown what he can brings to this team in scudetto winning season and saves he made in Champions league last season.
Management can convince him by adding bonuses by winning scudetto, progress in champilns league,appearences and salary to 8m and show him the project.
The saves he made in last 16 and quarter finals of champions league leads to Ac milan winning 40m, they can easily pay bonuses if we win 120m like last season champions league
I cannot imagine donnarumma can do that, he played well the last season he was under dida as gk coach. After he was back to normal make same mistakes.
A real fan doesn’t accept to bring back what dollarumma has done to the club after doing everything to him for 6years. 200+ first team appearences at age 21 is not a simple thing.
Greedy Dollaruma should look for a club elsewhere, he’s not good enough for Milan at this point, too inconsistent, too crap with his feet.
Who tf is sitting on the negotiation table.
Cash only.
Anything over 80 mil and they can have him in January.
He’s regressed in that amateur league, no thanks.
Stay in France and keep practicing with your feet. We are happy with Mike.
Probably end up in Saudi Arabia…… big bucks for Dollarumma!
Yep, I’m happy with Mike… well, as long as he PLAYS… Goddamnit…
What a nonsense.
At least he isnt injured every ten games
Bring him back. Cash plug GG, id say yes in a heartbeat
At least he isnt injured every ten games
Bring him back. We get cash plug GG, id say yes in a heartbeat
Mimmo isn’t his agent anymore either. So hed take less than he earns now to play for us
“Mimmo” is a nickname for Domenico.
its so funny to see the negative crew are the ones with no dignity
Unlikely and not great look at what happend with lukaku and pogba 2 big names in a dramatic return. Lukaku average and pogba injured and doping
so here is just a thought:
Mike is 28 turning 29…
Dollarumma is : 24..
Mike is officially valued at 45M BUT I think we could expect much higher (maybe 60-70M)
Dollarumma is valued around 50M
Then there is Dollarummas bad blood with the fans and Mike’s constant injuries to consider as well.
And Dollarumma would probably have to drop his salary to maybe 6-7M.
AND PSG would have to pay us 15-20M on top of Dollarumma.
Then I think its a good deal.
Or how about this analysis:
Donnarumma is a dirty, rotten traitor and can do one, and Maignan is our current player and legend of the Scudetto winning side and we should keep him at all costs because we love him?
The problem with the whole head over heart analysis is, well, what’s the point of football if there’s no heart, and anything the head can produce is guesswork because football is completely unpredictable.
If Mike didn’t get injured every time he went to the national team, I wouldn’t consider the option. The issue is he gets injured consistently and you never know when the next will be the last.
But the Goalkeeper market is vast you can have much better goalkeepers than $umma at much lower cost. Trubin, Carnesechi, Mamardashvili, the Genk GK I forgot the name all would be much better than $umma.
If he doesn’t have to pass the ball 15times per match to Giroud, he will not get injured in life
There is big difference how a goalkeeper is used.
Its our headless pioli should manage his work load or ask him to reduce his long pass work load by making players more tiki taka than just asking goalkeeper to pass every ball to giroud.
And we rate him less because his distributions is not exact.
Either we ask him to play just as a goalkeeper or reduce his workload by using sportiello in small matches
LMAO!!! Yeah…. right. Like that will ever happen.
His annual salary of €12.73m puts him out of the reach of all but a handful of the richest European teams, an elite group that Milan does not currently belong to.
Looking up the salaries of the top goalkeepers of the top clubs, Manual Neuer tops them all at €20m a year at Bayern, and, the guy is injured and sitting on his butt for that money, while an Israeli guy takes his place (irony of ironies, this being Munich … where all that bad stuff started)
Ederson, at ManCity makes either £9.36m or £5.2m depending on the source.
Courteois makes €15m according to one source – also sitting on his butt recovering from injury this season, while the much maligned Kepa subs in for him on loan from Chelsea at £7.6m salary.
Barcelona pay Ter-Stegen either €6.2m or €10m depending on the source.
At Juve, Szczesny makes €7m according to one source (other sources say higher and lower).
Onana, on the other hand, makes only £5.2m playing for ManU (and really sucks at it too, based on his performance this week in CL action against Bayern)
So, unless Milan wants to entirely rip up their wage scale and make Maignon the highest paid goalkeeper in Serie A, then this is not going to happen, and it would be best for Milan to sell Maignon before he runs out his contract.
I think only the Saudi Pro League would want to pay that much salary to a GK who has trouble with playing the ball at his feet. That’s pretty much the standard in European football these days.
Is this some type of sick joke? I’d have Sportiello over seeing Gigi in a Milan shirt again, stay far away.
Take the cash for Magic Mike if it comes to it.
Carnessecci is the future if Italian keeping.
I never want to see Donnarumma play for Milan again, and wish nothing but bad luck on him.
Too much?
I don’t care.
All of this wont happen . Donna reject salary offer increase from 6m euro nett to 8m euro nett that offered by Maldini at that time, he choose more money + 20m euro comission from PSG , he wont leave PSG until his contract expire. Better try extend mike contract first, if mike still refuse till next summer market open then it is time to explore another option, you cannot play GK if he is in one year contract left in 2024 , you will repeat donna case ( mike free transfer at 2025)
We should sell Mike if a good offer comes. He is a good goalkeeper but also injured all the time. However swaping him for Dolaruma ? If PSG ads 40mil then maybe, plus Dolaruma should half his sallary. Any way i would rather sell and look for new Goalkeeper rather then bringing back Dolaruma in a straight swap.
Donnaruma can comeback
But expect his wage to be 3m cap. He lost the trust of everyone, and dont deserve higher wage than everyone.
This can change with time. He was a kid. Maybe he has grown up as a man. Who knows
I’d rather have the Antonio one.
I’m disappointed that it took the press this long to cook up this most obvious of rumours!
Will never happen. If MM does indeed want 10m then we should sell and find the next one (not what I want but we can’t pay a keeper that much), and the next one is definitely not the dodgy guy from PSG.
Saudi has money and his name is bigger than his talent so he’ll fit right in there.
On the pitch he is good enough to replace Mike, but we could never afford his wages, so straight cash please. If he wanted to lower his wage demands, we as a club and the fans need to forget the past. We are not in a position to hold a grudge.
Sell maignan for hundred and promote our primavera goalkeeper that is the better option than bringing this dollarumma cause this guy will always suck.
As per Milan fan source here, he is very injury prône. He will not get 30m also. Who will buy for 100m🤣🤣🤣🤣
Well, if Swap-deal plus more than 50mil euros and Donnarumma take 50% pay-cut, i will take it.
Donnarumma still Italy’s first-choice GK and yes a good stop-stopper. Donnarumma’s long-kick & throwing aren’t too bad.
But, Donnarumma is still a downgrade if compared to Maignan, now.