Despite the fact that we are now less than two weeks away from the start of the season, AC Milan are still seemingly not close to getting the defensive midfielder that Paulo Fonseca needs, namely Youssouf Fofana.
As Antonio Vitiello writes in his latest update column for MilanNews, the purchase of a new midfielder was a priority and should have perhaps even been the first signing to arrive, but ‘something went wrong’.
The negotiations with Monaco for Fofana have proven ‘more complicated than expected’ and now these are ‘decisive days’. The management must choose whether to take a risk and continue, or break the deadlock and switch to another target.
As has been extensively reported, Fofana already has an agreement with the Rossoneri over personal terms, but negotiations with Monaco ‘have been going on for over a month’ without reaching an agreement.
The directors will have to raise their bid to around €20m plus bonuses and hope that Monaco can accept, because Giorgio Furlani and Geoffrey Moncada will ‘certainly not spend €35m’ for a player whose contract expires in less than a year.
The feeling is that Milan’s strategy is to ‘wait until the final part of the mercato‘ to get Monaco’s green light at lower figures. There are still 25 days available to close the operation positively, but the start of the season is drawing closer.