Millwall FC have struck gold with £2.8m star – He could make Lions serious profit | OneFootball

Millwall signed Mihailo Ivanovic for £2.8 million last summer and he could be sold for a hefty profit this summer as Lazio are interested.

Millwall may well have missed out on a top six finish in this season’s Championship and the riches of the Premier League, but the Lions may well be set for a windfall with the growing interest in their striker Mihailo Ivanovic.

Alex Neil replaced Neil Harris mid-way through this season, and he led the Lions extremely well as they hunted down an unlikely top six finish and a potential play-off berth.

However, for the second time in three seasons, they eventually missed out on the final day, having taken the lead in the final game, this time going 1-0 up at title challengers Burnley, only to succumb to a 3-1 loss at Turf Moor.

The man that gave them the lead in Lancashire on that day was indeed Ivanovic and the rising star of strikers in the second-tier is now the subject of interest from abroad and is a sign of further impressive recruitment from the south Londoners.

Lazio in for Ivanovic

According to Italian media outlet La Lazio Siamo Noi, Serie A giants Lazio have identified Ivanovic as a target this summer and are ‘monitoring’ the Novi Sad-born forward as they seek to add another striker to their squad.

The step up from Bermondsey to Rome may appear like a steep one, but the Serb has shown a level of quality and rapid rise to mean that his potential is now widely seen as being high enough to potentially compete in the UEFA Champions League next season, if reports are to be believed and Lazio get their way in the top four race in Italy.

Ivanovic broke Millwall’s club-record fee when he arrived from Serbian SuperLiga outfit Vojvodina last summer for a fee believed to be worth £2.8 million. That record has since been broken with the arrival of Camiel Neghli from Sparta Rotterdam in the winter transfer window.

Having come through the Vojvodina academy, Ivanovic endured a tough loan spell at Sampdoria in Serie A in the 2022/23 campaign and had only scored ten senior goals before his move to England.

However, after a slow-ish start to his time at The Den with just two goals scored in his opening 18 Millwall appearances, he finished the campaign with ten strikes in just 19 games.

It could well be that the 2024/25 Millwall Young Player of the Year award winner could well net the Lions a hefty profit on that £2.8 million outlay from last summer’s transfer window.

Millwall’s impressive recruitment

In the summer of 2022 and the summer of 2023, Millwall also broke their club-record transfer fee on two players arriving from Europe, with Zian Flemming signing from Fortuna Sittard for a fee believed to be £1.7 million, before Casper De Norre arrived a year later for just over £2 million.

Flemming went on to win Millwall’s Player of the Season award in the 2022/23 campaign with 15 goals in 43 Championship games in his first season. He eventually moved to Burnley last summer and helped the Clarets gain automatic promotion back to the top-flight. His move to Turf Moor has become a permanent one already for a fee of £7 million, netting the club a massive profit on their original fee.

De Norre, a defensive midfielder who can fill in at full-back, started all but two of Millwall’s games in their impressive 2024/25 season after a stop-start first season in English football.

Ivanovic is another example of a recruit from overseas who has thrived at The Den, and it could well be that the Serb nets Millwall a similarly substantial profit as to the fee received for Flemming.