Junior Messias has a couple of months to convince Paolo Maldini and Milan to sign him on a permanent deal.
The 30-year-old Brazilian forward made the dream move to the Lombardy capital last summer in a €2.6m loan deal with a €5.4m buy option attached, plus add-ons. He has had a decent campaign so far under Stefano Pioli, scoring five goals in 23 appearances across all competitions for the Rossoneri.
Whilst Messias has performed well, he has to raise the bar if he wants to make his stay permanent, Calciomercato.com highlights. Maldini is a fan of the Crotone owned forward but the club don’t plan to make a final decision regarding his future until the end of this season.
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One concern for the Rossoneri is the Brazilian’s age. He will turn 31 in May and the Milanese club want to understand if there’s still space for Messias in the Milan project.
Now the ball is in Messias’ court and he needs to prove to both Maldini and Milan that he deserves to keep his spot in Pioli’s squad.
https://twitter.com/cmdotcom/status/1504919458623619072
Good player, just not good enough for Milan. Saelemaekers has age on his side, but not him.
Still worth more than 8m though. I say redeem him and then sell/trade for a higher fee.
8m for a super-sub against tired leg is worth it, he’s way more clinical than Alexis
I’d keep Messias and sell Saladmaker- or offer Alexis+cash for Berardi.
Saelemaekers has no end product and he won’t learn that.
RW (Raphina, Tete, Berardi etc) with Messias supporting is fine.
Messias’ age isn’t a problem for Milan – they knew what age he was when they took him on
He’s done ok but we need a next level player in that position if we are going to step up to the next level. The good news is we may not need to sign a CB if Kalulu and Tomori keep going the way they are (Kjær and Gabbia).
Unfortunately we have at least 3 other players we don’t own: Díaz (who we can replace with Adli), Florenzi (and it seems we’re not impressed with Ballo-Touré so we’ll need a new RB and LB) and Bakayoko (who we have also given up on).
I just can’t wait until the time Milan actually owns their entire squad and we can focus on building rather than replacing.
Decent player who gives his all but a step up in quality would be preferable.