Moretto: Milan planning €40m Zirkzee bid – two other players involved

By Oliver Fisher -

AC Milan consider Joshua Zirkzee to be one of their main targets for the summer transfer window, a report claims, and they already have an offer in mind.

In December we told you that Milan are scouting Zirkzee closely because they need to invest in a young striker before next season and they believe the Dutchman has a lot of potential.

According to what is being reported by Matteo Moretto for SOSFanta, Milan know that Olivier Giroud is strongly attracted by an experience outside Europe in view of June and that means they are planning for a future without him.

The management plans to contact both Zirkzee’s entourage and Bologna to discuss a possible summer deal and Milan’s plan is to invest a total of €25-30m and insert a counterpart (presumably Lorenzo Colombo) to hit the €40m asking price.

Furthermore, Milan will also be able to use Alexis Saelemaekers in negotiations given he moved to Bologna in August 2023 via a paid loan formula (€m) with an option to buy set at around €10m.

A detail worth pointing out is Bayern Munich’s possibility of matching any type of offer that arrives but the last word belongs to the player, who must still give his ok to return to Germany, which he is not inclined to do.

The real competition will be from the Premier League, which is a league in which Zirkzee’s agent has great relationships (Arsenal above all) and where clubs could offer more.

Tags AC Milan Alexis Saelemaekers Joshua Zirkzee Lorenzo Colombo

19 Comments

  1. Once again, it’s Inter doing the smart business before the summer with Zielinski and Taremi (both freebies) both just about nailed on to join.
    We will be polishing the Zirkzee turd well into the summer and up to deadline day I suspect, before he turns us down…

    1. What do Zielinski and Taremi have to do with Zirkzee? They’re free agents and could have signed a pre-contract since January 1. Inter is not doing “smart” business, they’re just doing the business they’re allowed to do. Zirkzee is not out of contract and so we have to negotiate, and most clubs/players don’t like negotiating in the middle of the season. If you’re talking about the actual signing of Zielinski and Taremi, I don’t think Taremi is the right long term solution at striker and we don’t need a player with Zielinski’s profile. He’s basically Inter’s replacement for Mkhitaryan. We need a young striker, a defensive midfielder, a good backup for Theo and maybe a center back.

      1. After how Taremi did us over, I don’t even get why people are still stuck on him. Also his last season stats are pretty bad.

        16 appearances, 3 goals in the League. Lol. Not a solution at all.

        Inter didn’t really do anything smart.

        1. Its because taremi isn’t interested to play for Porto anymore, his body is at Porto but his mind is somewhere else. He’ll do well at Inter, just watch

        2. People said that about Thuram too. And Hakan. But look at them now. As hard as we’d like to admit, Inter doing helluva smarter move than us. Sold Onana for high priced, got Sommer for pennies. Lost Lukaku, got Thuram for free. And we don’t even feel they lost Skriniar for free, as they currently have the strongest defence on Europe.

          And do we really need to compare the like of Marotta with Furlani (with all due respect)?

      2. Sometimes we don’t need to always look for a long term solution. We still have many current holes that need to be filled right away. And that’s what Inter do. Looking at the recent result(s), looks like their way of doing things bring more satisfaction.

    2. We’re doing smarter by signing cheap players and sell them after gaining market value, but dunno about the title. If we want to sign star players we have to sell our star. Afterall, signing expensive players could turn out tobe flop or gambling purchase for the first season, unless we sign a true superstars

    3. Inter has Lautaro and Thuram. It doesn’t need to spend money on a first-choice calibre striker (which saying nothing about its financial restrictions).

      It needs more reliable relief for its first choice pair than Arnautovic and Sanchez have proven to be.

      We need a starting #9 who can impact a whole game (with hold up play, etc) so that we don’t lose complete control of a game for 60 minutes against sides the quality of Frosinone. That cost money. Admittedly Thuram was a free agent but how often does a 26 year old of that calibre end up a free agent and which we can afford to sign? Arguably we couldn’t even afford to sign Thuram, but I believe that was really more than Inter had been wooing him for 12 to 18 months and that he had already committed to Inter (certainly when a prior attempted transfer fell through).

      Zirkzee checks all the boxes for me. He’s a big, physical guy. He’s very good at holding the ball up and coming deep to distribute. He excels at brining others into the game and is hitting the scoreboard (and there hardly a tap-in in site).

  2. Taremi isnt worth our time after the stunt he pulled. And who knows how he will do in a different league. It’s not like he’s a youngster. We can do way better than that. Also, Maldini isn’t in charge anymore so we don’t wait all summer.

  3. Given Maignan’s salary demands and the increasing unlikelihood of a renewal, what we should do is strike a grand bargain with Bayern. They exercise their 40m buyback, and then flip him to us plus 20m cash for Mike. Then we use the 20m for DiGregorio. Then we use the “normal” 40-50m transfer fund for the best defensive midfielder we can get. Then with the sales of Saelemaekers, Colombo and CDK, which could bring in another ~50m, we get Buongiorno and a good backup LB for Theo. Done and done.

      1. Dude, read it again.

        “Then we use the “normal” 40-50m transfer fund for the best DEFENSIVE MIDFIELDER we can get.”

    1. And put him on a bench for Kane? That would be a waste and he wouldn’t want that really. I think Bayern can’t wait for a bidding war for Zirkzee this summer.

Comments are closed

Serie A Standings

Live football scores . Current table, fixtures & results.