Winter Mercato - 2025

[1994.acmilan]

Okafor done deal to Leipzig loan with option to buy set at 25 MILLION + bonuses. Can almost guarantee he comes back, 25m!?

[Zio Fester]

Romano: RB Leipzig and AC Milan have agreed on loan deal for Noah Okafor plus buy option clause worth over €25m. Loan with salary covered by Leipzig, buy option clause not mandatory — around €25/28m based on several factors.

No way Leipzig are paying those sums, Okafor will be back in the summer reporting for preseason training as "a new player".

[Santino]

What the....? We have a full team on loan...

[Beppe]

25m, thats not realistic, 100%sure he will be back in the summer.
Really strange why they made this buyout option so high

[reza]

Well at least I/we can't complain that we might lose our player for less than normal. If they somehow pick up that option it would be a rare good business by management.

[1994.acmilan]

Rumors that Rashford announcement is imminent. Loan until end of season 70/30 wage split (we pay 70% of his wages) with option to buy set at 40mln pounds.
Seems a bit steep. He's in his prime age, if he gets a 3-4 year contract surely he won't reduce his wages less than 10-12m per season & by the time his contract is over we aren't recovering that 40m. I suppose his performance will decide whether we spend the 40m ultimately. I can see Okafor coming back to us and Rashford back to MU by end of season LOL, not because Rashford will fail - but because I don't see us dishing that cash out on transfer+hefty wages with little chance of getting it back.

My bigger question is how do we incorporate Leao, Pulisic & Rashford? I assume Rashford would play as a striker.

[Beppe]

I guess Rashford is only for this half a season, we are desperate to get back into CL football spots, top 4 is a must!

[Inas]

But where would Rashford play?

Trust Milan to always pull out these weird transfer moves. Can't we ever do "normal" transfers without it being awkward, like normal clubs? It's tiring.

[Sampinjon]

You have a very valid point here on all the other players, but when you realize what players get paid these days 4.6m to royal isn't so bad. I think the state of inflation in players both salaries + transfer value is absurd. Besides that, look at any right back out there that we could consider an improvement over Emerson. Carvajal gets paid 10m per season, double the salary. Kyle Walker 9m, Hakimi 14.5m, Di Lorenzo 5.5m, Dumfries 5m etc etc.

The fact is it's going rate for a RB capable of putting in a shift these days. Even Sergino Dest is on close to 5m per season. The top are being paid close to 10m and up per season. 

In terms of looking at Reijnders and Thiaws salary, there's no point in looking at 'value' vs what they contribute at this moment because if they aren't renewed ASAP they will leave and be paid far more. They're on the salary that we signed them on as prospects. To be fair, our wage bill is comparatively low for the quality we have in general vs other clubs but it's not sustainable. Our bigger names are coming due for renewal as are our young talent like Thiaw, Reijnders and this is where we decipher whether we'll be a farm team or a competitive team. We need to renew our assets and not sell every year when it comes time to pay them their worth.

So on Emerson, I think he's in and around value. BUT Morata, RLC, Bennacer and Florenzi are just outrageous terrible business. Morata on 8m is an absolute joke.

We should not compare us with other clubs, especially with those which are above our paygrade. It is not the same if 5M is 0,5%, 5% or 10% of your payroll. It's not same if your 5M is 8% of what top earners get or 60%.  It's not same if you're payed 5M at Real, Milan or Atalanta. Expectations are different. If you have "balls" to ask Atalanta for that money, you're expected to be star player. And you will have to deliver that. Or to face deserved shitstorm. Similar for Milan. Most of the people, do expect (with good reason) more than just ok for that money. Theo is payed 5,1M, Royal 4,7M. Why not expect similar ratio on the field as well?
Since you mentioned Dest, let's use him and Royal as example how it should work. They both had few bad seasons behind them. Dest went from Barcelona to PSV, he got 3,somethingM salary at PSV. He was payed 6,something at Barca. That's around 50% salary drop. Now look at Royal. At Spurs he was payed 2,5M per season. But in Milan he's 4,7M. That's almost 50% salary INCREASE. WTF? How? Why? Based on what? I doubt that Gerry went to London, put gun on Royal's head and said "You must sign for doubled salary or I'll shoot you". So dude had balls to ask for double salary despite being flop reject (how and why he was granted that request is for deep psychiatric analysis of folks who did that) and now some people be butthurt when fans expect from him? Leave "poor guy" at peace? Seriously?

[Beppe]

Barcelona is in for Rashford it seems serious.

J.David is also available! Dunno why we arent looking for him, only 6months left on his contract and banging on goals for many seasons now.

Arda Guler is another one we should try for, getting little playing time at Madrid, but he is a special kind of talent, the one that could win ballon d’or in the future.