AC Milan are serious about trying to sign Viktor Gyokeres from Sporting CP and they might just have a couple of cards to play in their favour, a report claims.
As this morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) recalls, it seems that a friendship was struck up at the Dom Alfonso Henrique stadium in Guimaraes, where Portugal beat Sweden 5-2 on Thursday evening.
Rafa Leao was decisive with the first goal of the night and on the other side was Gyokeres, the new Milan target. What is certain is that Milan will sign another striker in the summer, given that Olivier Giroud could leave for America and if he ends up staying he would no longer have a guaranteed place.
The Rossoneri is looking for new goals and with Gyokeres they could secure their future: at 25 years old, in his first season at Sporting CP, has has scored 36 goals scored in 39 games played considering all competitions, one every 89 minutes.
He was purchased in the summer from Coventry for €24m and it turned out to be a bargain. This time too, with Sporting involved, there is a clause to resolve worth €100m. It is a high but absolutely negotiable price.
Supply and demand could meet halfway, because an offer of €50m is the basis for trying to build a negotiation and would bring the Portuguese club to the table.
Two allies
The first card that Milan will be able to play is that of the king: Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Gyokeres, a Swede from Stockholm, subscribes to Ibra’s charm and Zlatan has just been crowned at the helm of the club by Gerry Cardinale.
If Ibra calls it’s difficult not to answer, even if in the meantime the bells of the Premier League ring. Gyokeres was Zlatan’s partner for 17 minutes in the Sweden-Belgium match on 24 March 2023, the latter’s last match for the national team.
Viktor is still far from the throne but in the meantime it is as if he has picked up his legacy in the national team: will the same happen at Milan? After Giroud, who arrived at Milan as Ibra’s stand-in and then took centre stage, Gyokeres would be the first full-time striker on whom the club would focus its attention.
Milan could then play their joker, namely the Leao card. Rafa and Viktor exchanged shirts and compliments after the match between their respective national teams.
Viktor said of Rafa: “He is a fantastic player and I admire his work. After the match he told me that I had played well and I replied that he hadn’t done badly either!”
From the next day they began a social bond: Gyokeres is among Leao’s almost six million followers, Leao is among Gyokeres’ 269,000. The likes on Instagram have only fuelled things.
A profile that fits
The rest of Gyokeres’ identikit matches the profile of the attacker that Milan are looking for: a young player with experience, who is at the same time an asset to develop and a surefire investment.
The Swede is 25 years old, as mentioned, and before his exploits in Portugal he had shown himself with Coventry and before that he looked for playing time between Brighton, Swansea and at St. Pauli in the German second division.
He is not available at a discount, but the price tag would not be unaffordable either: the club intend to invest a good part of its summer budget on the next centre-forward. The cost of Joshua Zirkzee, to mention another target, does not differ much though he does know Serie A already.
Among the revenues guaranteed by participation in the next Champions League and the money that will come into cash from sales (€40m from the sales of three players out on loan) Milan already have good spending power.
Anticipation
For both targets the risk is the strong competition from other clubs, which is why Milan need to get on track early, while Ibra can make the difference.
Leao the same, he is a sprinter and an assist man: last year he endorsed the purchase of Noah Okafor. Will a Swede from Sporting CP be the first ‘coup’ of the Ibra-Leao tandem? They hope so.
