This morning a meeting was held at Casa Milan between the AC Milan directors and their Stuttgart counterparts that could lead to some rather surprising developments, we have learned.
Milan are heading for a crucial few weeks when it comes to planning for the future given that they must choose a new head coach, a starting striker, probably a midfielder and a centre-back as well as resolving the futures of those who might leave.
A discussion at the club headquarters between technical director Geoffrey Moncada and the Stuttgart management – led by Thomas Henning who is Head of Recruitment for the German club – took place today, with more information emerging.
The players involved
The highlight of the discussion was Serhou Guirassy, a striker who scored 30 goals in 30 games this season, with a tempting release clause of €17.5m. The meeting between Geoffrey Moncada and the German leadership lasted about an hour and a half and ended around 12:15pm CEST.
Guirassy was courted by Milan also during the most recent January mercato. The main obstacle, however, is represented by the possible high salary requested by the Guinean striker who is reportedly demanding a net €5m per season from his future club.
It is natural that the Diavolo are looking to keep their options open in their pursuit of a new striker given that Joshua Zirkzee and Benjamin Sesko appear to be more concrete targets but they would cost at least three times as much and there is strong competition for each.
In addition to that, we can deduce that is unlikely that the Stuttgart delegation made the trip just to talk about a player with a known valuation, and thus it is obvious that other players were also spoken about.
Defensive duo on the radar
The Teutonic club also made two declarations of interest in Milan player. The duo appreciated by Stuttgart are defenders Pierre Kalulu and Jan-Carlo Simic, according to Calciomercato.com and as confirmed after our checks.
Stuttgart are working to strengthen their defence as they will play in the Champions League next season and thus they are likely to have a bit of budget available to be able to go out and bolster their starting line-up.
Simic and Kalulu are experiencing two opposite career moments. The Serbian was recently called up by his national team and is a very highly regarded talent, while the Frenchman is in period of struggle after having been a starter for Milan for a long time.
Precisely for this reason, Milan does not exclude the departure of the former Lyon man, who is considered sellable also in consideration of the total capital gain that it would generate, because he arrived for just €500k.
The main headline
What we have also learned through our colleagues at SempreMilan.it, there was also some talk about Sebastian Hoeness who was the head coach of Stuttgart for a very memorable 2023-24 season.
Hoeness can be compared to Thiago Motta in the sense that he led Stuttgart to second place in the Bundesliga when they were not really fancied for a Champions League place, and they played some excellent football in the process.
The 42-year-old is regarded a flexible coach with innovative ideas, and has successfully used both the 3-5-2 and the 4-2-3-1 throughout his career, the latter of which has been used by Milan for years now.
Hoeness has been named among the main suspects to replace Thomas Tuchel on the Bayern bench, and we can also reveal that he has a release clause which Milan requested information this morning.
It is not yet certain whether the Rossoneri management have the real intention of exercising it, but today’s meeting leaves the door open, also because the feeling is that the Paulo Fonseca news circulating could be a distraction tactic.