Maldini discusses about Tomori, Romagnoli and Ibrahimovic at Milan

Unavoidably, the first question was about Fikayo Tomori stretching out beyond Alessio Romagnoli. The Chelsea-owned center-back, who has a €25m clause to purchase, said he was unable to oppose joining Milan when Maldini called him himself. 

“Fortunately, I work for a club that has an effect on players. When AC Milan call, they players always listen,” Maldini told Sky Sport Italia.

“Fikayo is a player with particular characteristics, pace and intensity, so we thought he could be a good reinforcement for this second half of the season.

“Naturally, Romagnoli isn’t happy, no player is when he doesn’t play. However, Milan are 17 points better off than last season, we’re second despite having more commitments and many injuries, so squad rotation is necessary and Alessio has played pretty much every game.”

The Rossoneri are slowing down recently, losing a bigger number of matches in 2021 than all through all of 2020, and hardly got through to the

Round of 16 against Red Star Belgrade. 

“I don’t see what more we can ask from this team. The growth from last season has been exponential, we know that we are not Bayern Munich or Manchester City at this moment, but we are much better than we expected to be at this stage of the campaign.

“The energy levels have changed, because that’s natural after 17 months of pretty much non-stop football. It’s physiological.”

Ibrahimovic

has made a controversial descision to attend the Sanremo Music Festival one week from now, in spite of there being a midweek round in

. 

“Regardless of Sanremo, everyone has always expected a great game from Ibrahimovic in any situation. It’s a strange week, we won’t deny that, but he won’t let himself be influenced by that.

“I know he is a great professional. We delayed the extension of the contract last year, which was our fault because there was a certain situation in the club, and when he signed the new deal, he told us that he had these commitments during this period.

“We have no doubts he will manage to do all of these things in his life like the great professional that he is.”

Maldini was asked about the on-going negotiations with

Hakan Calhanoglu

and

Gianluigi Donnarumma

for a contract extension, just as reports Milan will purchase Tomori from Chelsea.

“We have an option to buy for Tomori, it’s up to us to evaluate whether we activate it or not. As for the players whose contracts are running down, we include Zlatan as well, and we have weekly discussions about that too. All I can say is there isn’t much news to tell you.”

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