AC Milan’s patient strategy regarding Youssouf Fofana is yet to pay off, but a journalist has claimed that there could be some movement in the coming days.
Antonio Vitiello reports for MilanNews that it is now a ‘tug of war’ between Monaco and Fofana. The French midfielder ‘only wants Milan’ and hopes to join the Rossoneri by the end of the transfer window.
The 25-year-old ‘decided not to take part’ in the most recent friendly against Barcelona, because he is ‘waiting for mercato news’ and for developments regarding his future. Fofana, therefore, has seemingly taken matters into his own hands.
Now, there are two options for Monaco: the first is to ‘take twenty million’ from the sale of Fofana or to ‘lose him for free in a year’, with Milan ready to welcome him on a free transfer in the summer of 2025.
The Milan management have always been clear on their stance, which is that spending €35m on a player who only has 10 months left on his contract ‘would not be a wise choice’. Thus, Milan are ‘waiting confidently’ with Monaco now ‘at a crossroads’.
Milan’s strategy regarding Fofana has always been ‘to wait and see’ and believing that ‘something would move in the second half of August’. They could well be proven right.
Monaco apparently lowered the price to 25mil, which is still much more than Milan initially offered. I do get that Milan has clear strategy to not pay too much for players, to buy only specific type of players, but I don’t get this chase for Fofana.
They knew from the start that he will cost 20-25mil, yet they stubbornly offer 14-18mil the whole time. We already have mid August and he is still not there. If they knew from the start the differences in pricing are too big, why not go and sign some alternative, that would already be there having time to prepare with new team under new coach.
Even if they finally bring Fofana it will be end of Mercato, season would’ve already started, and Fofana currently is not even part of the team with Monaco – he will be not aligning well with Milan’s squad, and maybe he won’t even be in good physical shape due to being out of squad in Monaco.
This.
we can only hope that somehow Fonseca is able to integrate players faster than Pioli. It is still hard for me to believe how a player joins madrid, City, liverpool and just hits the ground running. For us, it normally takes almost a full season for a player to fit it. is that the coach or the players or what. lol
Morata just got to training yesterday is it worth spending an extra 20M to sign him early for him to show up in camp for an extra week? Morata, and Mike, Reijnders and Theo just got there. They may miss the first game. Getting him a week or 2 later is the situation. He costs whatever the offer is because management put in the work.
They arrived late because of Euro. And Mike, Theo, Reijnders are already part of the team so they don’t have to adapt to everything. Morata is new but he has huge experience, even played in Serie A with Juve for a few years (just 100km from Milano) so he will surely adapt quickly and easily. He probably don’t even need to buy a property as he likely already has a house nearby xD
Fofana is way younger and hasn’t played his whole life anywhere outside French league – which is obviously as well worse than Serie A. New country, new city, new club, new league, new colleagues, new coach…
I get that sometimes there are good opportunities on the last days of Mercato, but here they knew from the start they want to bring in a more defensive midfielder. They should have known this for whole year tbh. Not to mention they could have done that in advance as well, eg Inter grabbed Zielinski months ago so he could start preparing.
IMO this is just poor planning.
He was with Mike and Theo at the Euros…and this coach has a much different system. Its a new season for everyone, and he plays defense as a team, Its important that they get everyone on the same page.
My argument is that if he was going to come to camp yesterday, it was not worth paying 35M. Even if they offered 25M, Monaco have no incentive to let the deal go through until the last day. Striker was a need too, they made the offers at the same time. They can’t control the other team’s situation. If they come out of the window without a striker and defensively sound midfielder, then I will join you in complaining.
But who told you Milan suddenly needs to pay 35mil? Read again what I have written… they knew from the start 20-25mil is a must have offer to get him and they never offered anything more than 20. If they’d offered 20mil + bonuses from the start Fofana would already be here, training with team and living in Milano, even when he would physically arrive few days ago. This is not a matter of 15mil difference, but 3-5mil difference at most. And not to mention if Milan is actually able to get any discount at all, because now Monaco wants still 25. If they’d pay at the end 25 they would literally gain nothing and waste a lot of time and risk of having not fit player.
Not to even mention they are lucky for now that no other team is willing to get him. If United or other club would want him, they would march in with 25mil on the table and grab him, exactly like they did with Zirkzee.
Who told you that Milan needed to pay 25M? the price was 35M. They know he wants to go to Milan, they know that they will have to accept the offer that Milan provides. They have no incentive to sell him until the last day. If Milan offered 25M they would have dropped the request to 30M and its the same situation. Too many assumptions that they just needed to offer a little more when there is no evidence of that.
Also it isn’t luck, that was the entire strategy. They sold the player on the project so that they would not have to get into a bidding war and overpay. its how they have signed every player so far at a discount (besides Morata), and its the only way that you can compete for a players against teams with double the revenue.
Fofana out of shape?
Bruh, fofana was in euro.
It’s not like he wasn’t playing football for months.
Late signings happen all the time and integrate just fine. They offered 20 million. They just didn’t see reason to offer more than that.
You assumes a lot.
What we don’t know as fans is very much more than what we know. As far as my observation is concerned, the management’s tactic has paid off with the deal of Pavlovic and Morata and it’s paying off with Fofana also.
Just chill and observe, the management doesn’t care about your complaints or tears
Milan is doing the right thing here
So not only he missed the preparation with us, but he missed the whole pre-season all together even with Monaco, so there is a likelyhood of him being out of shape and not ready to start the season with us.
Yes, in these cases, you don’t have use for the player until 8 months later. 2 months to get in shape, 4 to get used to teammates and coach’s demands, condensed fixtures, less playing time because the player isn’t prepared yet. It isn’t worth haggling over to get a late deal when it affects your preperation for the season.
Morata signed a month ago and got to camp yesterday. Fofona would have come at the same time…Theo and Reijnders also just arrived…its just the reality of the euros…
Theo and Reijnders were already in the team for more than a year, they don’t need adaptation. Of course the coach is new, but they were already very well integrated.
In Morata’s case, at least he knows the serie A, has experience and is in pretty good shape.
Fofana never played outside of the weak french league and isn’t currently trained. So not only he is missing prep, but he is also probably out of shape. I think getting him sooner and in better is worth 5M€.
Monaco has no incentive to accept a deal that isn’t 35M until the final day of the window…Unless they have now lowered the price…
The team is not playing in the same style, and the defense can’t be as disjointed as last season. Every player will need to learn to play in this system like a new player…Especially Reijnders, if he is trusted to play in the pivot…will have to show activity on defense which he should be capable of.
Management will have surely been communicating what he needs to be doing for conditioning, I’d be surprised if he showed up not ready to go…but we will see.
Dude, this is a professional player who knows how to stay in shape and he didn’t miss anything, he was at the Euros so he needs a little bit of a rest. Plus he has been training with Monaco – what are you talking about? You think he is like you and sits on the couch all day eating pizza and drinking beer? SMH
unprofessional is all im gonna say
I’ll definitely agree with this
you should follow fofana, man has been training heavily like a beast. he has professionals with him training him just as much as a coach will do in club training.
All this doesn’t really matter now does it?
Fact remains we are without a proper defensive player in midfield and we’re missing one since Kessie left. Last summer they spent 110 millions without addressing the matter, although many of us were expressing our concerns. To our shocking surprise, we’ve had one of the worst seasons for goals conceded in the history of this club.
This summer such player was supposed to be top priority but we are now less then a week from starting a new season and we’re still without one.
Now they can go along and play their game of patience but they are doing it at the expense of the team and potentially performance.
I feel sorry for Fonseca and although I was not thrilled with his appointment, he’s getting my support now. Not because of him but because these incompetent m0r0ns from our so called management are already failing him.
It was also a record season for goals…they hadn’t scored that many league goals in 20 years…
the cost of spending an extra 15M to sign Fofona at the same time as Morata to come to camp yesterday is a decision I would agree with. Thats too much money to spend on an extra week or 2 with a player…
Theo and Mike and Reijnders also just got there, you don’t have to feel bad for Fonseca, that is what happens with the euros…
Mate don’t comment the same thing under every other comment… it’s different to adapt for experienced players and different for young folks without any prior experience of adopting anywhere. You don’t know if that would work or not.
You have really similar example of De Ketelaere – if he’d join early July, maybe today Milan would have a top player. But then Milan lost time, effort, money and in the end only strengthened local rival.
CDK was afraid of his own shadow at Milan. An extra month wouldn’t have changed anything. Wrong player for the wrong system, doesn’t work. Gasperini proved that.
LOL Fofana doesn’t have prior experience and can’t adapt anywhere lol? Seriously bruh? He’s 25, not 21. And he’s played with a top national team. He’s not a CDK.
You can’t just not sign players because its the summer of euros. You just adapt. The outcomes are not predictable. Maybe Fofona having to fight his way into a starting role on the team will make him a better player. Maybe Morata can’t start the first game and they start Jovic he scores a hat trick and scores 40 goals on the season…As long as the team fights on defense, its not really about the individuals.
Pioli was unwilling to play young players through adversity, which needs to happen for them to evolve. There are plenty of examples.
Oh yes we also topped our previous season of 22/23 for 5 points despite spending huge sum of 110 millions.
Lo u guys just don’t get it or you’re trying to be stubborn on spite?
Goals don’t win you titles. Defences do. I’ve been preaching this for many years now
What’s the point of scoring all these goals and you let in just as many. Defence is more strongly correlated to whoever wins the Scudetto. We scored 76 goals in the league last year …..we did 74 goals in 20/21. Let’s not act like last year’s output was crazy magical. We did almost the same without needing a midfield overhaul. And both seasons we didn’t win jack. When we did win was Hmm 🤔 guess what…when we had the best defence. Just like Inter last year, Napoli, and so on.
And if you’re talking about total goals in all comps, I wouldn’t be so proud of scoring 10% of them against the likes of Rennes and Slavia in the second rate European competition.
Also “Theo and Mike and Reijnders also just got there, ” is not the problem. They know each other already. It’s the total newbies that will have issues adapting. Like any DM thats going to arrive, if that is.
Sorry my point was that they were just bringing up the negative. I agree that you need to do everything well, especially team defense, to win. Last year’s output was only crazy because of the number of changes to the team. But the defense was very disjointed. I’d argue that in order to play the way the team wants to play its vital for those players to have time with the team because they are going to be asked to do very different roles than last year and one player out of position breaks the whole thing. Reijnders focusing on his positioning for defensive duties will be an adaptation and a very important one to the team’s success.
Oh sorry my bad. I didn’t realize the context in which you said it. So yes I agree. There’s a huge positive (subs for our attack did great and fixed the RW in Puli). But we do need to fix some outstanding issues in defensive midfield. Also i do agree with not spending the 15 m more to get Fofana (I’m not that vested in the transfer tbh, I just wait until they become Milan players). I’m sure media don’t have that story right tbh. They’re probably working on a different target
It’s like I wrote here once.
When things goes sideways, is it Fonseca that takes the blame, the players that takes the blame, or the management this time steps up. Last time it was Pioli. Let’s see who becomes the pariah this time.
A position that is desperately in need, they would play patient dog over irrespective of the dire situation.
Other thing is that if Fofana’s behaviour is something that is good for Milan… he can be another Calhanoglu that forces his current team to sell him to a better one (Calhanoglu did that in the past in Germany as well).
What if Fofana comes, plays 2 amazing seasons and then Real Madrid would want to sign him, but they would say to Milan: we can only give you 35mil? Fofana would do the same, force club to sell him, will be out of squad etc. This sounds like rotten apple behaviour tbh.
He has a valid contract that he signed with Monaco and he should respect that.
You mean honor it and leave for free like Hakan did? There is no equivalency here. Monaco are trying to extract a high price for a player in their last year, as is their right, and the player wants to move, which is his right. If the move doesn’t happen, judge the player by how he plays his last year with the club.
No, he does not have a right to “force club to sell him” as the article literally says.
Citing the article: “The 25-year-old ‘decided not to take part’ in the most recent friendly against Barcelona”. He literally doesn’t want to play for club that he has a contract with, and you seriously say that it’s his right?
I wonder how would your opinion look like when Fofana would come and in 2 years do the same thing for Milan 😉 he wouldn’t play against Monza because he would like to go to Madrid for underpriced offer.
All this talk about wasting time signing players and integrating players…… Remember when Ibra and Robinho joined on the final day of the mercato and it didn’t make a damn bit of difference to theirs or the team’s performance?
those 2 were exp players with plenty of transfer behind them.. Fofana is nothing like that. Dude lived his whole life in france the switch to italy is gonna take its toll, Mike and Theo might smooth it a bit but it will still do what it does
Some players are exceptionaly good, doesn’t mean we should use them as a measuring stick.
The truth is, the sooner a player comes the better. Some players can get adapt very fast but we have no way of knowing that before hand and in case of Fofana, he never played in serie A or even outside of France for that matter (Ibra, Morata already played in serie A for example).
Also Fofana is missing prep even with Monaco. So we’re pretty much gambling our season at this point. And he is not even a pure DM…
And all of this because of a 3-5M€ difference.
Remember when Ketelaere joined late days and Milan lost tons of money and effort, but turned out when he had more time he actually showed quality?
At time of joining both ibrahimovic and Robinho were already well-known, experienced players, playing for Inter, Juve, Barcelona, Ajax, Real Madrid and Man City. Comparing to them Fofana is just a poor student who never play outside his mediocre team in mediocre French league. Not to even mention he is more a defensive player so a lot of his qualities are related with good physical preparation and understanding of tactics.
Agree with all above to a certain extent… I’m just commenting on the amount of OTT handwringing that’s going on over players arriving “late.” They’re professionals – I’m sure he’ll pick things up quick enough.
Fofana plays for the French national team. They are the WC and the Euro vice-champs. Fofana is a good player. It’s not his fault that the Monaco and the French league is mediocre. He is above their level.
We didn’t ship so many goals last season because we lacked a “true” DM. We shipped so many goals because we were ravaged by injuries. Bennacer missed half a dozen games and wasn’t the same until way late in the season. Maignan missed 50 days with injury. Tomori, Thiaw and Kalulu…all injured. Remember having to bring Gabbia back and starting Theo at CB for 7 games? Add to that Pioli’s tactics being totally found out by opposition management and it’s not surprise we shipped so many goals.
Lacking of a true DM was a part of our catastophic goal-conceiding performance. None of our midfielders can defend and Bennacer performed at his best when he had Kessie alongside him. In 2022/23, he and Tonali were already exposed in front of stacked midfields.
Our midfield was intact apart from Bennacer who was out already by the end of season 22/23.
But our new 60 million midfield was non existent in defensive phase last season and that’s a fact.
Gabbia and Theo were solid backups for the time being, even more than Tomori and Thiaw.
Totally disagree. It wasn’t the lack of one certain type of player that caused us to be so porous in defense. It was Pioli tactics, which at times had literally no bodies in the midfield at all and a fourth and fifth choice center back pairing for much of the season, along with another two months stent on the injured List for Maignan
Not to mention that when Tomori and Thiaw did come back they were AWFUL. Thiaw lost us a few games all by himself.
strongly agree with this take. Midfielders play well when the front line attacks the ball and forces rushed passes. Defenders play well when midfielders attack those forced passes, causing more turnovers and quick decisions (Assuming a pressing team). The team seemed stuck between trying to press and playing a mid-block, and they just ended up giving the other team too much time to pick their spots and players to find gaps in the midfield. Adding a strong defender to the midfield is helpful, but only if everyone on the team does their job. A team is only as good as their worst defender. One guy is lazy and it falls apart.
But if he would have a “true DM” then Bennacer’s injury wouldn’t matter, because this true DM would come in and sweep like a maniac 😉
There is nothing magical about preseason. There is no preseason fairy dust that anoints a player with a deep understanding of the system, the players around him or whatever it is people think is happening.
It is simply work and time.
When a €25m player arrives there will be a section of the coaching staff that brings him up to speed. If that is 6 weeks like it would have been in preseason, then that is what it will be in season.
Jovic took awhile last season because he arrived injured and needed to heal then regain form and fitness. He would/could not have done this any faster in the magical preseason.
Chuk taking nearly a season to integrate is a Chuk/Pioli issue. Chuk clearly didn’t know where to be in the overly complex system that was The 505 WTF that Pioli was running. You could see Flo, Cal ria and others waving and frustrated with him beyond Christmas. That it took 6 months is Chuk not doing the mental work.
Benny comes back from injury. It takes him 3 months to get back to 80% of his former self. He was overweight and clearly didn’t know where he should be even though he’s played well for Pioli for years. Why? Overly complex system poorly explained.
There is nothing magical about preseason.
There is only hard work (on the part of the coach staff and the player) and time.
Move on! Jesus christ. This has been going on for month now. And serie a is soon to start.
I don’t know why people tend to forget that these are profesional footballers.
They’re not bunch of idiots who don’t know what to do once they join a new team.
Sure pre season has it benefits but it’s not the most essential thing.
Surely these footballers also learn own their own about the coach and the team they’re about to join.
So according to these people who talk a lot about pre season, signing in january will always be doomed because the players didn’t have pre season training with the team?
And fofana just came back from euro ffs it’s not like he was on a football hiatus for months
“I don’t know why people tend to forget that these are profesional footballers.”
It’s almost as if we didn’t notice the differences between the players who came early in pre-seasons (Reijnders, Pulisic and Loftus-Cheek) and those who came late (CDK, Chukwueze, Jovic,…) and I can name other examples from many other clubs.
I don’t understand why many posters here will say everything to defend the management’s strategy.
We could have ended this saga weeks ago had we started with a bid of 18M€ or 20M€, but everything the management does is the “best decision” I guess.
We’re pretty much starting the season with no DM because the management doesn’t want to spend an extra 5M€, but hey, relax we’re getting him in january anyways (last season we were eliminated from almost evey competition by december).
I think what we should have learned by now is that there is what media publish and what really goes on behind closed doors that no one knows about.
The Zirkzee saga should be proof of that. I bet the price for Fofana was always 25mil, but the story about an angry Russian billionaire playing hardball made for more clicks and views…
Fofana will go through and hopefully he’ll adapt quickly.
Forget clicks, views and media for a sec and go bare bones. It’s 1 week to the start of the season and we don’t have a DM. Plain and simple. Don’t care who we’re linked with or not, thats just the simple fact.
LMAO at this guy saying late signings never work out. Late signings happen all the time and integrate just fine. This isn’t a case of CDK. Fofana has extensive experience already and played in the Euros. He’s not out of shape.
It´s pretty clear we´re not willing to overpay for this transfer. 20 mil is the offer and we don´t care how long it takes. It´s take it or leave it. We decide the price we want to pay and if that doesn´t fit Monaco´s plans, then we´ll wait for a year and won´t pay anything. Seems pretty clear. Eventually we win.
Excellent.
And what do we do about the DM issue this season if Monaco doesn’t sell ?
Should we go for most consecutive seasons without a DM ?