€30m price set for controlling midfielder as Milan and Man City join chase | OneFootball

AC Milan are in the market for a central midfielder, and one name coming to the top of the list of sporting director Geoffrey Moncada is Samuele Ricci.

That’s according to MilanLive, who say that the playmaker is considered a top target for the Italian giants. The 23 year old is emerging as a top player in Serie A and now has 5 Italy caps after the most recent international break.

However the same source also notes that Chelsea and Manchester City have already made “surveys” about the player, a fact which allowing Torino to potentially charge a lot more for their young talent – a fee of €30m is mentioned, and a bidding war could take that even higher.

Samuele Ricci stars for Italy in the Nations League. (Photo by Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Getty Images)

No natural place for Ricci – yet

A deal like this would have to be a long way off for Chelsea, really. A vast investment was made in midfield with the signings of Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez and Romeo Lavia, and while there will always be a need to keep cycling more young talents in, unless one of those starts heading towards the exit, it’s hard to see a major new signing being made.

As it stands, Fernandez seems the most likely to go. He’s just not been able to find his feet consistently, and doesn’t really have a natural place in this current formation. If by the end of this season he’s still struggling for form, we might see the first rumours of a departure getting serious in the summer. We can all see he’s a quality player, it might just be that this team at this moment in time aren’t suiting him, and selling him on (even at a loss) could be a possibility if there’s a ready made replacement ready to come in.