{"id":580541,"date":"2021-01-26T08:08:45","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T13:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=580541"},"modified":"2021-01-26T08:08:45","modified_gmt":"2021-01-26T13:08:45","slug":"grading-the-three-transfer-acquisitions-of-ac-milan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/01\/26\/grading-the-three-transfer-acquisitions-of-ac-milan\/","title":{"rendered":"Grading the Three Transfer Acquisitions of AC Milan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/clubs\/ac-milan\/\" target=\"_self\">AC Milan<\/a> have made three solid transfer acquisitions so far during this market. They are\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/5cec2c74\/Soualiho-Meite\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Soualiho Meite<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/afa0d4e0\/Mario-Mandzukic\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mario Mandzukic<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/7edfbb8a\/Fikayo-Tomori\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fikayo Tomori<\/a>. All three will be major factors in the\u00a0<em>Rossoneri<\/em>&#8216;s run at the\u00a0<em>Scudetto<\/em> this season. As of now, Milan are first in Serie A, two points ahead of city rivals Inter Milan at second.<\/p>\n<h2>AC Milan: Grading Three Transfer Acquisitions<\/h2>\n<h3>Two Potential Wins<\/h3>\n<p>Meite and Mandzukic should prove to be two low-risk, high-reward wins.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/01\/14\/mario-mandzukic-an-option-for-ac-milan\/\" target=\"_self\">Meite<\/a> arrives on a \u20ac500k loan, with an option to buy for \u20ac5.5 million at the end of the season. He arrives after a successful few seasons at Torino. Now, of course, he doesn&#8217;t stand above the pack as elite in terms of Serie A midfielders, but he certainly is a solid bench option.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s seen game time thus far, but that is due to <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/db092d3b\/Ismael-Bennacer\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ismael Bennacer<\/a>&#8216;s injury and <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/0db169ae\/Sandro-Tonali\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sandro Tonali<\/a>&#8216;s inconsistency. Meite is not fully immersed into the squad just yet, making for a couple of rough outings. He will, however, be important in the Europa League and a good option in case of injuries down the road. This move is a 6\/10.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/01\/19\/ac-milan-confirm-signing-of-mario-mandzukic\/\" target=\"_self\">Mandzukic comes on a six-month<\/a> contract to finish the season. Milan desperately needed a reliable back-up to <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/4cde5509\/Zlatan-Ibrahimovic\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Zlatan Ibrahimovic<\/a>, and Mandzukic is that. He&#8217;s no longer an elite poacher, but he still has what it takes at 34-years-old. He&#8217;s vicious on the field with a knack for winning and a proven leader. This move has no risk and will surely turn out well. It gets an 8\/10 rating.<\/p>\n<h3>Tomori is AC Milan&#8217;s Prize this Window<\/h3>\n<p>Tomori fell out of favour at <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2018\/11\/18\/chelsea-transfer-news-pulisic-hysaj-ake\/\" target=\"_self\">Chelsea<\/a> and fell into Milan&#8217;s lap as a potential steal.<\/p>\n<p>He won&#8217;t be a starter at the club due to the presence of both <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/3ead85f9\/Alessio-Romagnoli\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alessio Romagnoli<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/8b8a56ce\/Simon-Kjaer\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Simon Kjaer<\/a>. They are locked in as Milan&#8217;s starters. With this being said, Kjaer is a veteran and older than the majority of this team. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/01\/22\/fikayo-tomori-joins-ac-milan-on-loan\/\" target=\"_self\">Tomori has arrived on loan with an option to buy,<\/a> so if he impresses during his stint then Milan will surely trigger their option.<\/p>\n<p>Tomori is only 23-years-old, meaning there&#8217;s so much more room to grow. Milan had already lacked centre-back depth, and Tomori likely rises to the top as the first option off the bench. The club struck gold with this deal. If he remains the player he was last season at Chelsea, then Milan will have a solid back-up as they push to win the league. If he&#8217;s even better than that, then the club has already found it&#8217;s eventual Kjaer successor. This move gets a 9\/10.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"viN0-_6FS1RkSdVWzPFpoQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1298039849\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'viN0-_6FS1RkSdVWzPFpoQ',sig:'_ka8i4OCFNBKvXzXbIOSU8JfEbxz_KMyz0dVW5IafXI=',w:'594px',h:'424px',items:'1298039849',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AC Milan have made three solid transfer acquisitions so far during this market. They are\u00a0Soualiho Meite, Mario Mandzukic, and Fikayo Tomori. All three will be major factors in the\u00a0Rossoneri&#8216;s run at the\u00a0Scudetto this season. As of now, Milan are first in Serie A, two points ahead of city rivals Inter Milan at second. AC Milan: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2248,"featured_media":580616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1363,5,28],"tags":[49,1153,791,48,7851,1179,136],"class_list":["post-580541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ac-milan","category-serie-a","category-transfers","tag-ac-milan","tag-fikayo-tomori","tag-mario-mandzukic","tag-serie-a","tag-soualiho-meite","tag-transfer-news","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}