As August draws to a close, there is still just one sign posted both at Milanello and Casa Milan: work in progress. Understandable, considering the time the new coach needs to iron out the imperfections, but also to build on the positive aspects seen in the opening matches of the season, particularly in the victories over Torino and Venezia.
After all, to understand just how much Milan are still a team under construction, all it took was a look at the starting XI in the opening fixture. On paper, a line-up that was far from ready; on the pitch, however, a real team, a group that showed it is following the new coach’s ideas and applying them almost flawlessly.
Work in progress
But the work in progress is far from finished, either on the pitch or, even more so, in the offices at the club’s headquarters on Via Aldo Rossi. In recent weeks, Milan have decided who will effectively no longer be part of Amorim’s project. Of the four main names (Fofana, Tomori, Gimenez and Nkunku) only the latter two have already found new clubs, while the futures of the other two remain to be resolved. Leão, meanwhile, has officially completed his departure as he joined Galatasaray for 38 million euros plus bonuses, which brought an end to one of the most significant chapters of the summer transfer window. With Milan being shaped without key star Leao, the club’s upcoming matches carry extra weight for fans tracking form and sports betting interest alike. The transfer market, meanwhile, waits for no one: there are only five days left.
Without that quality
Milan really need to speed things up to avoid reaching the end of this transfer window with several players deemed surplus to requirements (and their hefty contracts) still in the squad. In the revolution wanted by Gerry Cardinale, who specifically chose Hendrik Almstadt as sporting director and director of player trading, what may have been missing is precisely a figure capable of making an impact not only on the few incoming operations so far, but above all on the management of departures.
This is probably where the real limitation of this Milan lies when it comes to transfer decisions and operational ability. Buying players is important, but knowing how to sell them is equally important. And, at least so far, the new Rossoneri era has yet to prove that it truly has the qualities of a seller.
Speaking of another sale, Christopher Nkunku has left AC Milan on a loan move with an option to buy in favour of RB Leipzig.
There are players who, when they leave a club, leave behind a thousand questions. What if…? Christopher Nkunku is one such case. After just one year, he leaves Milan with a big What if…? In effect, a chapter that, given the expectations, his characteristics and the investment involved, should and could have told a completely different story is coming to an end. And that is precisely the point. One year alone is not enough to fully judge a player’s value. Because at Milan, Nkunku could have been something else, something much more. But he wasn’t, and he never will be.
What could have been: Christopher Nkunku at Leipzig
At Leipzig, Nkunku had become everything Milan are looking for now. He had become a player capable of occupying practically every area of the attacking midfield, alternating between a second-striker role and that of an attacking midfielder, moving behind the centre-forward and attacking space with such consistency that he was incredibly difficult to read. The numbers tell the story of his explosion better than any adjective. Between 2019 and 2023, he played 119 Bundesliga matches, scoring 47 goals and providing 43 assists. In the Champions League, he added 14 goals and four assists in 29 appearances.
But it is above all the 2021-23 period that makes Milan’s regrets even greater. In 2021-22, Nkunku finished the Bundesliga season with 20 goals and 13 assists in 34 matches, earning the award for the best player in the German league. The following season, he also won the Bundesliga Golden Boot with 16 goals, level with Niclas Füllkrug, another name at random…
What he was: a poor copy of the original (?)
The move to Chelsea for around €60 million represented the natural culmination of his rise in Germany. But in England, Nkunku never managed to find any consistency: injuries took their toll and his performances remained well below those he had produced at Leipzig. Overall, his time in London amounted to numbers that were far more modest than those that had preceded the transfer. And, above all, far more modest than everyone at Stamford Bridge had expected.
Milan nevertheless decided to take a gamble on him in the summer of 2025, investing around €37 million and tying him to the club until 2030. The problem is that the same player seen at Chelsea arrived at Milanello. The original version (although we are not even sure that was the one we admired at Leipzig) never arrived. Eight goals and three assists: far from disastrous numbers, but insufficient for a player who was expected to become one of the main sources of quality in Milan’s attack. A player for whom the investment in a centre-forward had been set aside.
What will not be: Nkunku's future is no longer in Milan
And here we are in the present. Milan have decided to part ways with Nkunku, at least temporarily. The return to Leipzig almost feels like the closing of the circle: it was there that the Frenchman reached his best level, and it is there that he will try to find it again. Away from Milanello. And perhaps this is precisely the chapter that Milan will no longer be able to write.
We will not see Nkunku become the player everyone imagined he would be when he was signed. We will never know whether, with another coach, another system or simply a little more physical continuity, something might have changed. And, above all, we will continue to see Milan’s attacking-midfield position vacant. The player whose characteristics most closely embodied that role is gone. What remains, therefore, is the regret of what could have been. Of what wasn’t. And of what can no longer be, at least at Milan.
