Karim Benzema to AC Milan? Surely you jest.

Despite winning yet another Champions League title, Real Madrid appear ready to reload their attacking line a little bit. Last season saw reports of Gareth Bale falling out of favor, and while Bale came on in the final against Liverpool, rumblings of discontent still rang out of Madrid until the World Cup came around.

After the World Cup came the story that didn’t make any sense: That Cristiano Ronaldo would leave Real Madrid and go to Juventus in Serie A. And after the story was immediately dismissed as fiction, it actually did come true.

So will a former teammate of Ronaldo’s also make the leap to Serie A?

There are now reports that France striker Karim Benzema is interested in a move to AC Milan, and that his representatives have already met with the Milan brass at Milanello this past week to agree on contract details. The reports also state that Milan are willing to match Real Madrid’s €9 million salary for the 30 year-old striker and add an additional year to his current contract that runs three more years.

Okay. So does this rumor make any sense?

There will always be links between Milan and big name players, and now that Milan has stable ownership and is out of UEFA jail and will appear in the Europa League, expect those rumors to heat up.

However, Massmiliano Mirabelli has recently said that any transfer targets would not necessarily be the flashiest players after stating earlier in the window that a striker target would be a shocking development. Simeone Zaza, a rather unflashy acquisition, has been the striker most linked with a move to Milan, but even those links haven’t come to fruition.

Milan have made no moves so fart this summer that have involved transfer fees. Ivan Strinic, Alen Halilovic, and Pepe Reina were all out of contract when signed by Milan. And while there have been rumors of players like Nikola Kalinic, Andre Silva, and Leonardo Bonucci all leaving for big money transfer fees, none have left yet and preseason has started across Europe.

Whatever fee that Real Madrid want for Benzema will likely be too much for Milan to afford, and even if they could afford it, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense. Andre Silva and Patrick Cutrone are both good, young strikers. And while Kalinic’s move away from Milan is almost certainly close, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to bring in a 30 year-old striker to replace 22 year-old Andre Silva, despite his less-than-impressive first season at the San Siro. Not only that, but Karim Benzema wasn’t exactly prolific last season, scoring only five goals in La Liga.

On top of it all, Benzema’s agent responded to a tweet claiming that Benzema was on the move to Milan with laughing emojis. It seems that this rumor isn’t really going anywhere.