Just over a month remains until the first official match of the new season (on August 17: Milan vs. Bari in the Coppa Italia), and Milan currently finds itself without starting full-backs. This was reported this morning by La Gazzetta dello Sport, which recalls that a few days ago the Rossoneri club announced the permanent sale of Theo Hernandez to Al Hilal, while on the right, Kyle Walker was not redeemed after six months on loan from Manchester City.
Until Friday evening, in fact, the club directors were convinced they had secured the replacement for the Frenchman on the left, but then Milan was outmaneuvered by Fenerbahçe, who raised their salary offer and secured the services of Archie Brown, former full-back of Gent, who was officially announced by the Turkish club yesterday. A harsh blow for the Rossoneri, who had hoped to at least provide coach Max Allegri with a new defensive wide player before the departure for the tour in Asia and Australia, scheduled for next Saturday. There are still a few days left to try to bring someone in, but it won’t be easy because other negotiations have also become complicated—for example, the one for Guéla Doué of Strasbourg.
In the past few hours, the Rossoneri have submitted a second offer of around 18 million euros plus bonuses, but the response from the French side was once again negative, as they want at least 25 million including bonuses. The gap between offer and demand is therefore still quite wide, and so the club management is forced to consider alternative options: at AC Milan, they must decide whether or not to go all-in for Marc Pubill, right-back of Almeria, who costs 15 million euros. On the left flank, after missing out on Brown, the option of Miguel Gutierrez from Girona remains alive, while in the past few hours a new name has emerged—that of Melvin Bard from Nice.
