With the departure of Colombo, a backup center forward will enter. Continuous dialogue with Paris to find a formula, in the meantime we are also working on alternatives
A week for praise: in 57 days Milan made nine signings, one every six. Perfectly in line with president Scaroni’s calculations: “Our Furlani makes one purchase a week”. The last of the transfer market calendar starts today and ends at eight in the evening of 31 August. Enough time for one last deal, the tenth. The purchases already on the pitch have raised the value of the team, the others will be able to do so: the spare center forward, the missing piece of the puzzle, will allow Pioli to have all the joints necessary to aspire to the tops of Italy and Europe.
a shot of ten
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To get up there it is necessary to restore oxygen to the attacking starters: Olivier Giroud, 37 years old at the end of September, will not be able to lead the team’s ascent every week. Okafor is a good alternative, but not a driving force: he has never reached double figures, the quota that separates a good center forward from a possible scorer, and last year he stopped at 7. Pioli doesn’t mind as a point of reference area but opening up another way to score would be useful for everyone. One of the lanes today is engaged by Lorenzo Colombo, so what was said about Okafor is all the more valid: in his first season in Serie A at Lecce he went up to five goals. In a team that can guarantee him more space, like Monza, he could start climbing the top scorer. This is why his road could lead him elsewhere (on loan) with the certainty of following it in the opposite direction: Milan round trip. Which is why the Rossoneri contact will also be prolonged in the meantime.
french pole
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So here we are with the players who could take over the direction of Milanello: on pole, ready to shoot, is Hugo Ekitike, 21, who has been at PSG since last season. He too managed to shine in the attack of the stars: between Mbappé, Messi and Neymar he carved out space for 32 appearances, 4 goals and as many assists. The year before he had scored 10 for Reims in Ligue1 alone. Already on the field in the first of the new season against Lorient, even if for only eight minutes. It cost Paris 35 million and Milan do not intend to relaunch but to negotiate for the loan with the right to buy. No obligation, which would commit to the summer of 2024. The middle ground is an onerous loan with a purchase option, a solution that could make everyone agree. So Milan had brought Tomori to Milan. Ekitike himself could serve a first assist: he wants Milan, definitely more than Eintracht Frankfurt and West Ham, the other teams that have signed up for the race. Ekitike is AC Milan’s first candidate and AC Milan is the first club on Ekitike’s personal list. The agreement on the contract is practically obvious. It is a constant of the Rossoneri summer: all the new signings have chosen Milan even in the midst of other options. The club can be pleased with the renewed appeal.
the alternatives
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Should the Ekitike deal fail, Milan would quickly divert to other routes. From Paris he would move to another European capital, London: Chelsea is the neighborhood of Armando Broja, Albanian striker born in 2001, 21 goals in 91 professional games between Chelsea, Vitesse and Southampton (double loan between 2020 and 2022), just recovered after breaking the crusader that had stopped him last December. Chelsea seem less willing than PSG to open loan negotiations: Milan, after having paid 36 million into the English coffers for Loftus-Cheek and Pulisic, would instead like to have him on sale. The real plan B is already in Serie A: Luka Jovic, tip of Fiorentina. The exclusion from the UEFA viola list is a clear signal: outside the list of players on which the Italian will bet, on top of that of players to be placed. In Milan he would rediscover motivations, which are scarce in Florence: if trust is the basis of performance, a supporting role for Giroud could gas him up to the point of making him reconnect with the past. Jovic had been a young striker at Red Star and a prolific center forward at Eintracht, so much so that he earned the title of promise in European football and a rich contract at Real Madrid. In La Liga and then in Fiorentina he lost his aim a bit. The other candidates in the running are far behind: the Iranian Taremi, for whom the last raise with Porto also proved inconclusive, or the former Inter player Lukaku. There is a week to cross the finish line of the tenth signing: so far the club has covered Maignan’s shoulders with a new assistant (Sportiello), has restored physicality and dynamism to the midfielder (with Loftus-Cheek, Musah and Reijnders) has expanded the attack solutions (Pulisic, Romero, Chukwueze, Okafor), and added a brick to the defensive wall (Pellegrino). The spare center forward is missing: for a market of 10.
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