Another transfer market derby could erupt between AC Milan and Inter with both clubs keen on Arsenal striker Folarin Balogun, according to a report.
According to the latest from Gianluca Di Marzio on his site PazzaDiFanta, the sale of Sandro Tonali to Newcastle United has allowed Milan to raise funds and their summer mercato is off to a lively start.
After the arrivals of Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Luka Romero and Christian Pulisic, the Rossoneri would like to further strengthen their attacking options and the hunt for a striker to alternate with Olivier Giroud has begun.
In this sense there is an interest in Balogun who scored 22 goals on loan at Stade de Reims from Arsenal last season, but Inter are keen on him too having given up on trying to sign Romelu Lukaku permanently.
Standing at 178cm tall, Balogun is a right-footed centre-forward who is very mobile, fast and athletic. From Milan’s point of view therefore, he would be a very different solution to Giroud and would give Pioli more options.
The Nerrazzurri are keen on signing another forward to work alongside Lautaro, Thuram and Correa. The belief is that Balogun won’t be sold cheaply by the Gunners, with his contract running until 2025.
If Inter get him as well Gerry can officialy go # himself.
He would be cherry on top of this mercato and I hope we can land him altough it will be tough.
Cardinale has to win this one.
Another embarrassment is on the way
He’s going to Inter then. We know they planned to spend 30m on Lukaku and Balagun will have far lower wages; makes sense for them
If we need to take our budget from two summer windows to complete the squad now, we are not in a position to play wait and see.
We need to pull triggers. We saw too many holes left open in the past three years and overworked this squad to death, leading to costly injuries and dips in forms at crucial moments. They must keep in mind, Juve should be in the CL, not us. We have to plug the weak spots adequately, it is non negotiable.
We have to make the required investments this summer and get as much time possible to get the team to gel together with our preseason. If the two next seasons we fall behind financially by investing now to meet FFP, so be it. This will give us what we can’t get back, time to rebuild our chemistry. We can be reactive later. Now is the absolute time to strike. We can adjust financially with assets in our squad instead of making pressing decisions out of desperation later. Squad depth will give us the possibility to recoup any funds at later dates. We fell behind three seasons by leaving our squad to be founded on inadequate stop gap solutions.
It bit us in the butt this year. Can’t afford him now? Fine, spend it anyway, sell and replace him later, of he performs his value will increase anyway if he is quality regardless.
Totally agree. We desperately need a striker. We should sign Balogun. Rather spend 40M on Balogun then 20M on a 31 year old Terami. He wouldn’t have much space at Inter so I would be surprised if he went there. With us he can and should eventually be the starter with Giroud as the perfect back up. Plus he’s American so Gerry would love that. Spend the $$ and get a player that will be with us for a while.
We will miss out on Chukuwze by signing Balogun but instead we can go for Isaksen or Bakayoko.
Get this done Gerry
We are talking about reasonable reinforcements. Understandable that we want to balance books, we have a better chance of doing it by guaranteeing ourselves quality depth now, with results on the field and if we need to sell for FFP then sell with our replacements knowing their teammates and roles in the squad, adjusted to our league, with Domínguez and him, or Dia, we hit the ground running. With better results our sponsors will chime in with more money because they want their brands front and center in the CL. FFP can be balanced over a few seasons. We can’t undo having bad results and injuries by not having options or being predictable because we lack alternatives.
This idea that financial prudence comes at the expense of having quality is nonsense. I understand we might be lucky to build a squad that makes it past the 1/4 round in the CL with our income until a stadium is built. Same time, we can’t afford to tarnish our reputation within our team. We need to be competitive in Europe, meaning, if we loose, put up a fight and at least not get blown out the water. Domestically we need top 3 minimum and a title every 3 to 4 years. It is achievable given we are financially in a better position than our rivals.
But isn’t this what Maldini wanted…to strike while the iron is hot? He wanted to upgrade the squad by ADDING Loftus,sms, Kamada and Berardi. But there’s a cost to that…about 75m (20+30+0+25) less allocated budget of 35 makes about 40 in the red and we’re back into FFP-safe territory. We would have guranteed the same core and meaningful additions for depth that are starting caliber players. Instead we sold a key core player for two supposed starting players in Loftus, Pulisic and deer (65m total). That’s a crazy gamble imo for a break even
Using the sale of Tonali. All these guys are new to the league and have questionable fitness records apart from 🦌. I don’t think they’ll slot in as easily as ppl think they will
I think with wages, that might be a much higher bill than 100 mill, more nearing the 150 mark at highest, this is spread over 3 years. Id still take Pulisic over Berardi if Pulisic performs and stays healthy of course. We could still sell him for 30 to 40 in two or three seasons. Still that 35 million times 3, it is 105 million euros. 45 million for extra wages could be recovered with a sale. We were 120 million on top of our budget with Tonali in the squad this summer. 5th or 4th and 2nd place in the league is 10 million per season, so that is a loss if we fall behind domestically. Point is we gave ourselves more problems than we solved this summer. Kessie in our team for 10 million more than they wsnted over 4 years is still less than paying for Loftus. Still have a better player. We created our misery.
Oh really Pulisic over Berardi? Maybe age-wise but not output-wise. We’ll have to agree to disagree otherwise on that one. But I def agree we created more problems thàn we’ve solved. I think if they had sold Mike it wouldn’t have been as bad. Sportiello is quite a good goalie. That whole Kessie situation could have been avoided if we hadn’t been so cheap.
According to information from the media, Arsenal would ask somewhere between 40-50 million euros for Balogun! Of course, if there are other interested clubs. Only other English clubs can pay that much money, but the question is whether the Gunners would like to strengthen the competition in the Premiership!? Maybe it’s a chance to lower the price! Sometimes I wonder if Inter even has a scout service!? I have a feeling that they just look at the neighboring yard and then get involved in the action.😂
I don’t think that is true. If you consider that Inter was going to bring Lukaku and with his wages. Balogun would cost less than him. Lukaku was 40M€ also.
Yeah 40M+ 8M wages.. his wages will be much lower. I think he will go to Inter. Their other options are Morata (probably to Roma) Sesko, he just signed for Leipzig, Nzola is off the list and the other option is Taremi
Can inter afford 8mil/year to one player???
Yes balogun wont be 8 though. Lukaku earned 10 I think. Lautaro is on 7-8 as well I think
He Deseves to go into Battle
Arsenal asking price 40m euro . After finish selling onana to MU , IM will have fund to buy balogun . Redbird dont want to buy one player more than 30m euro ,that make Dia or taremi or eikitike more realistic target for them
This seems like a stretch. I don’t think Arsenal will part with him for anything less than 50M if they know both Milan clubs want him.
Furthermore, if they do sell him outright, they will likely want a sell-on clause around 25%.
If AC won’t pony up 30M for Chuck, I can’t see them doing 50M for Bologun.
30 mil for Chuk in his last year makes zero sense. 50mil for Balogun for the foreseeable future is a good investment. No?
Great player for the present and the future. If Milan sign him in installment payments, it could work. 15-20mil per year over several years?
Doable. And honestly better than any of the other names we’ve been linked with.
Both clubs are broke to bring 40 million value players.