Milan’s transfer business over the years hasn’t always been the best. It has seen them conduct transfers in a wishy-washy fashion and they’ve had to sell players on a short-term basis. One of the best cases of this has been Andre Silva. But it is finally time for the Rossoneri to part ways with the Portuguese.
This past summer saw the striker head to Eintracht Frankfurt. In the deal, Ante Rebic went the other way and the Croatian is thriving at the Rossoneri in 2020. Silva though, hasn’t lived up to the hype that was built around him during his time in Portugal.
Under Adi Hutter, Silva has made only eight Bundesliga starts and has come off the bench seven times. He has scored four goals, picking up a couple of assists for the Eagles. While that isn’t a bad record by any means, it could be a case of the Hutter-effect on strikers – the Hutter effect meaning that leading online bookmaker bettingsites24.com are backing Frankfurt.
The German is known to be a very good coach for strikers. This saw the rise of Luka Jovic last season and Sebastien Haller earned a move to West Ham because of his goalscoring exploits. Rebic also made an impact in the triumvirate and sealed the Milan move. Apart from a more experienced scorer in Rebic though, the other two have struggled at their clubs.
As for Silva, there is every chance this happens at Milan too if he does well at Frankfurt in the long-run.
In his first season at Milan, Silva couldn’t impress Vincenzo Montella or Rino Gattuso. He scored only two Serie A goals in 26 appearances and failed to break into the club’s first-team. He was loaned out to Sevilla last season and that saw him rack up his best goalscoring tally since his last season at Porto.
He scored nine La Liga goals while playing 27 league games. In the UEFA Nations League for Portugal, he scored three goals in four games. This was, for many, a sign that he was back on track and scoring goals.
The permanent sale to Sevilla didn’t happen and the status quo isn’t overly promising. The striker is now far from being the youngster that he was back in 2017. He is 24 and needs regular football to thrive and improve in his career.
Milan are uncertain if they will have Zlatan Ibrahimovic at the club next season. But they do have Rebic and Rafael Leao as striker options. Leao was the first-choice striker at Lille last season and Rebic has been a potent striker, even though he hasn’t played in that position for Milan.
The club’s latest links with Mauro Icardi show that they want a proven goalscorer and not someone like Silva- who hasn’t established himself as a regular Frankfurt or at Milan. The lack fo a regular goalscorer and Krzysztof Piatek’s underperformances had seen the club score very few goals. The effects of that are still there as Stefano Pioli’s men have created an XG of only 38.59 and that is the eighth-best in the league. They have scored only 28 goals- the fourth-worst record in the division.
This shows where the club lack- a lethal finisher who can play every game and score consistently. But Silva has come nowhere close to doing that. The Rossoneri should cut their losses and use the money to sign someone else.
