Luka Modric’s injury saw Ardon Jashari get a chance as the deep-lying playmaker against Sassuolo, but it didn’t exactly go to plan.
La Gazzetta dello Sport begin their analysis by recalling Massimiliano Allegri’s words on Jashari, the man that Milan agreed a fee worth over €35m to sign from Club Brugge after a long negotiation in the most recent summer transfer window.
Read SempreMilan ad-free and get access to exclusive news. Click here for a free trial!
“You shouldn’t just look at whether a player does well one year and not so well the next. You need to evaluate everything from a 360-degree perspective; there are absolute values that don’t change,” the coach said.
A couple of weeks prior, he said: “With Jashari, the club made a great investment in a player of excellent quality. He had an injury, he returned, he had less playing time…
“But it’s not that he’s become a bad player. He’s had difficulties, he has great potential, he’s eager to learn: he’ll be an important player for the Milan of the future.”
The Swiss got a chance on Sunday but sadly he was among the worst on the pitch, swallowed up by getting very little help from those around him and by having very big boots to fill in terms of what Modric does.
The three problems
For those who observe carefully and don’t simply condemn Jashari without appeal, his qualities were evident throughout his 733 minutes this season. In strictly statistical terms, the only bright spot came at San Siro against Como, with a brilliant all-round game and a gorgeous assist for Rafael Leao.
Last summer was a draining one for the player and for Milan because Club Brugge – just as they had done with Charles De Ketelaere – hung on to get every penny. This disrupted his preseason, as Jashari trained alone and missed friendlies.
What are the three reasons that he failed on Sunday? The first problem: Allegri sees him primarily as a regista, and thus had Modric ahead of him all season. This ultimately impacted his playing time and thus his adaptation to a new league and a new club came slower.
Second problem: a collision in training with Santiago Gimenez resulted in a fractured fibula at the end of August, a problem that kept him out for two months. The effects of this are obvious: a long time on the sidelines that again hamper the settling in process.
Third issue: Jashari, with the €34m (plus bonuses) paid to Club Brugge, was the second-most expensive acquisition of the 2025 summer mercato. These are millions that weigh on your shoulders, when you play at San Siro, you wear the Milan shirt and everyone expects things from day one.
His seasonal numbers remain meagre: in the league he has racked up 553 minutes spread across 12 appearances, six of which came as a starter, and an average rating of 5.6 (out of 10). Fundamentally, he has never managed to get going.
Against Sassuolo, we saw a player who wasn’t up to par due to insecurity from limited use, not due to unsuitability for the role. Besides losing the ball for the first goal, he also lost other duels and obviously the team didn’t help him in any way.
Some also point out that at Club Brugge he played as a mezzala rather than so deep, but Ardon is a modern midfielder and it would be reductive to pigeonhole him into just one role. Year one has been a tough apprenticeship, but nobody is ready to write anything off yet.
As if he would get much more minutes if Allegri saw him as a left “mezz’ala”, come on. Rabiot is also very important of us, one of 2-3 most important players.
I think that Allegri planned to play Jashari more progressively but then difficulties started and he “had to play” Modric all the time.
Reminder Tonali had a bad first season and he had more playing time moored to Jashari
Yep, and there are more, even just sticking to recent seasons:
Reijnders was shocking year one.
Leao was going to Wolves for 30m at one point
Pavlovic and Fofana have been miles better this season than last (although probably still not good enough in Fofana’s case).
Gabbia looked like his chance would never come
you got it. Not everyone can be a Rabiot or Modric that come and hit the ground running. Looking at how Jashari played at Brugge, i always thought his competition was Fofana, rather than Modric. His heat map at Brugge were higher up the pitch. I guess Allegri sees something else during training.
I’ve been saying this. CDK was also significantly better in his second season.
1- He comes from a weaker foreign league, different language, different tactics, different expectations,… So he won’t adapt right away.
2- There was an entire summer drama around him with him missing some sessions at some point, us lowballing Bruge and only getting him late into the summer. That leads to a lot of pressure on him and a lot of stress.
3- He missed the entire preseason thanks to point N°2 which exacerbates point N°1.
4- He got badly injured before even playing, so his first game with us was delayed
5- He didn’t play many games and many minutes
So overall, I think it’s a mistake to try to judge his first season with us, giving all the factors against him.
However, that doesn’t guarantee that he’ll do well the next season or that he was worth a penny of what we paid for him.
Indeed. Better to wait and give the verdict a year from now.
Yes, the guy that gives players 2 years before giving a verdict. 😀 You sh*t on some players 2 months after they joined the club. 😀
No one asked you anything, kid. Never has and never will.
Remember Tonali’s first season?
“we saw a player who wasn’t up to par due to insecurity from limited use”
So you know exactly why he isn’t up to the standard of Milan? Sure you do. 😀
Bondo was playing bad because he was insecure from limited use. If he played all the time he would be a 200M player. That is the level of this article.
No but your argument is between extremes. Any player has to play more to improve generally. Tonali is his first year for example. Not every player follows that pattern. But there’s no reason why that couldn’t apply to Jashari. Unless I’m missing your point…
at least Allegri is a serious coach. If Conceicao was still around he would have started him as a right winger and pulled him in the first 20 minutes and blamed him for the loss…destroying any remaining confidence…
Mo Salah was so bad his first year with Chelsea they dumped him to Roma.
He’ll never get enough minutes with Modric starting for any consistency. And the times he does come on he looks nervous not to make a mistake, which he then doesn’t anyway.
Loan him out in Serie A for a season.