Olivier Giroud has confirmed his exit from AC Milan at the end of the season, leaving the Rossoneri with a crucial void to fill this summer.
The 37-year-old joined us in July 2021, and has since gone on to score 48 goals and provide 20 assists in 130 appearances for the club.
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While he’ll hope to add to those tallies in our final two Serie A games of the current campaign to go out in style, the French stalwart has proven to be a pivotal presence in the squad given what he’s added over the last three years.
From his goals, creativity, ability to be the focal point of our attack and link things together as well as his experience, leadership and professionalism, Giroud has been a key figure in the dressing room and was vital to our Scudetto success in 2022.
In turn, we’ll certainly miss him as he confirmed on Milan TV that he will move on this summer, and we wish him well as he embarks on the next chapter of his career.
For Milan though, it presents a major challenge for the recruitment staff to sign a suitable replacement to fill the void up front and ensure that we have a quality option to lead the line in the coming years.
While it could be argued that we needed fresh energy and ideas up top anyway even if Giroud had stayed another year, it’s imperative that whoever is identified as the ideal addition proves to be a suitable fit for our style and structure to be a consistent goalscorer, as given the expectation that such a signing will require a significant transfer fee, it’s not one we can afford to get wrong.
Various targets have been touted already in recent weeks, but they’ll have big shoes to fill as Giroud was critical to how we’ve played in recent years, and coupled with speculation of a new coach to replace Stefano Pioli this summer too, it will hopefully prove to be the beginning a successful new cycle.