Alvaro Morata & Gonzalo Higuain would be a waste of money for AC Milan

Well, the rumors linking AC Milan to expensive players didn’t take long to start up again, now that the club has new owners that will, in theory, spend money on the squad.

Reports indicate that Massmiliano Mirabelli and Marco Fassone were in London trying to seal a deal to bring Alvaro Morata to Milan from Chelsea, while they are also reportedly interested in Gonzalo Higuain from Juventus, who might be on his way out the door with Cristiano Ronaldo arriving in Turin.

Either one of the two strikers would be an absolute waste of money.

It’s rumored that Argentina striker Higuain would cost €60 million in transfer fees and additional €7.5 million in salary. Ouch. And while Morata hasn’t worked out like everyone hoped at Chelsea after his move to England, he will likely cost a similar amount of money.

Morata might want a move back to Italy, but then again, he might not. And considering that Chelsea paid £58 million (around €66 million) to Real Madrid for his services last summer, it’s not likely that the Chelsea will be interested in selling him at a discount.

Milan spent big on strikers last summer, signing Andre Silva from FC Porto for €38 million and also spent around €25 million on Nikola Kalinic to land him from Fiorentina. Milan spent over €60 million on strikers in last year’s summer transfer window, only for the best striker at the club to end up being Milan’s own Patrick Cutrone. Kalinic’s time at Milan appears to be over, while the club has vowed to hang on to Silva.

Milan are lacking in the midfield, so instead of spending €60 million on another striker, they should invest in a dominant midfielder. Gennaro Gattuso even said at the end of last season that he was interested in buying an “important midfielder” while Mirabelli promised strikers that would bring the house down, only to walk back talk of signing Morata last month.

Rather than focus on the flash without substance of last year’s transfer window, listen to what the manager says and get him a great midfielder who can dominate the game. And instead of shelling out the cash on a big-name striker, perhaps grabbing a lower-cost striker who can fill in from time to time would allow Cutrone to develop without sitting on the bench while the flashy new striker got all the playing time.

Of course, all of these rumors assume that Milan is even able to shell out big money for transfers, and there has been absolutely no sign of that at all so far this summer. Milan’s signings have all been on players who were out of contract, and even if Elliott Management has more money than Yonghong Li, the club is still in hot water over finances with UEFA.

Even if Elliott Management is somehow able to reduce or get rid of the European football ban and expensive penalties from UEFA, it’s still not as if Milan have a ton of room under FFP rules to be spending massive amounts of money without some expensive player sales.

So unless key players leave with large transfer fees, don’t expect Milan to be big buyers this summer. And if they do manage to find a few spare million euros in the couch cushion in the New York headquarters of Elliott Management that Milan can spend on a new star player or two, it should be spent on a new midfielder.