There is a lot of talk about AC Milan investing in a new striker, but Santiago Gimenez simply cannot become an afterthought for many reasons.
As a reminder, Gimenez was the big signing of the winter mercato as the Rossoneri paid €32m plus €3m in bonuses to snatch him from Feyenoord. Despite scoring six goals and adding three assists in a pretty dysfunctional side, there have been several rumours that he could actually leave.
The reason for this is that Igli Tare has already announced Milan’s plan to invest in another striker. So, even if the Mexican does remain at the club, it feels very likely that he is going to be relegated to a back-up role, especially in a season without any European competitions.
However, if the Rossoneri management were to effectively cast aside Gimenez just six months after making such a large investment, it should set off big red flashing warning signs for everyone.
There’s no doubt that even in football things can be rushed, and with a big price tag comes big expectations. This is especially true for attacking players, because the amount paid can be directly compared against their output in terms of goals and assists.
A recent example is Charles De Ketelaere, who arrived at Milan amid legitimate excitement and ended up in the dock at the end of the season. What happened after is the first precedent of note: Atalanta took him on board, and Gian Piero Gasperini turned him into the player Paolo Maldini and co. thought they were getting.
Any player that joins any club has a better chance of succeeding from day one if the environmental conditions are correct, i.e. if there is stability within the club, confidence within the squad and a feeling of togetherness.
It is the exact opposite of what happened to the Rossoneri in the first half of 2025, and thus the situation that Gimenez walked into. When the winter mercato rolled around, the management were trying to undo the mistakes of the summer, as shown by the five signings and six outgoings.
This chaos didn’t seem to deter the 24-year-old who instead pushed for the move, showing the self-belief that he could contribute to the resurgence of a team in crisis. That doesn’t change the fact that he was enrolling in the worst possible conditions to offer his best.
The change in head coach from Paulo Fonseca to Sergio Conceicao had happened just a few weeks prior, and the switch from one former Porto boss to another led to a defence-first philosophy. This was shown by moves such as the three-man defence.
Simply put, joining a team for a big fee mid-season is difficult enough as it is, let alone one languishing in mid-table with a new coach for everyone to get used to, half the squad having been altered and with fan anger the growing sentiment.
Despite this, Gimenez started quite well: four goal contributions in his first four games (three goals, one assist) had everyone feeling that ‘El Bebote’ might actually be the one to fire Milan out of a mess.
Sadly, even Santi couldn’t escape the quicksand. A goal drought then began, the team’s struggles only magnified the scrutiny and by the end of the campaign protests were more frequent than wins to celebrate.
By mid-April, the numbers demonstrated that Gimenez had lost his initial burst of adrenaline-fuelled confidence. The Mexican had 7.7 touches in the opponent’s area in the first part of the 2024-25 season, when he was at Feyenoord. That had practically halved since he arrived at Milan to 4.4.
The shots towards the goal and the chances created had decreased (from 1 to 0.4), while the passes had increased: in the Netherlands he had an average of 7.6 per game, with the Rossoneri it was just under 10. It showed he was dropping deeper – often too deep, more on that to come.
The goals go without saying: 16 in 19 games in the first few months at Feyenoord, one every 75 minutes of play. At Milan, once the curtain came down, he had managed six goals and three assists in 19 games.
A brace off the bench against Bologna off the bench in the Serie A fixture to spark a 3-1 comeback win meant all signs pointed Gimenez being given the nod a few days later in the Coppa Italia final against the same opponent.
He wasn’t, and this was when ‘teething problems’ became something a bit more worrying. A €35m striker signed to score the big goals and win the big games was cast aside for Luka Jovic who, granted, had single-handedly won the semi-final against Inter, but was destined to leave on a free transfer after arriving on one.
Conceicao probably got that one wrong in the end. In cup finals, especially for two sides looking to save a season, it was always going to be scrappy and cagey. Chances were at a premium, so it times like that you need your best finisher. Jovic’s missed chance early on from close range is an emblematic postcard from sad night.
A new era was brought in with Igli Tare and Massimiliano Allegri, yet nothing that the sporting director said in his first press conference will have given the former Feyenoord man much hope that he will be the focal point to build the team around.
“We plan to intervene on the wingers in the event of any exits. As for the centre-forward, we are looking for another player to compete with Gimenez, who I consider an excellent player but who has had a normal Italian impact, of settling in, from a very different football like Dutch football.
“For the role of the striker, also speaking with Zlatan, this team lacks a characteristic: having Gimenez who likes to drift to the wing and then cut inside, the team lacks a centre-forward who stays in the area and who is very good at holding the ball up, who makes the team push up, especially if he stays inside the area.”
Tare made two things pretty clear: 1) The club would invest in a new striker, and 2) They want a penalty area poacher. Last summer, the decision was made to go for a completely different profile in Alvaro Morata, who has been labelled as a ‘9.5’ because of his propensity to drop deep and participate in the build-up.
Looking at how Gimenez has scored his goals – both for Feyenoord and for Milan so far – a theme emerges. He runs off the last shoulder, he finds pockets of space inside the box, he thrives on loose balls and he will put away and decent service. Is this not a penalty area poaches?
Perhaps what Tare meant is someone more physical who can offer a different solution against the low block, and admittedly there were times last season where Santiago was isolated. There were also times where he offered the dynamism to change games, so it is a ‘horses for courses’ situation.
It was this isolation and lack of service that led to Gimenez coming away from the 18-yard box and moving wide, deep or both. That is not where he thrives nor where he wants to operate, so the priority has to be getting his strengths into the game rather than branding him as something he is not.
The fate of Gimenez largely rests in Allegri’s hands, and there are some positive indications. First of all, there are similarities between him and Dusan Vlahovic. Both are left-footed, both are known for operating as lone strikers and both attack the space in behind.
Their relationship was not always perfect, be that for tactical or personality reasons, but in Allegri’s last year in Turin the ex-Fiorentina man finished with 18 goals in 38 games. It included the decisive goal in a Coppa Italia final, a 1-0 win where chances were at a premium. Sound familiar?
It was a respectable haul for the Serbian, better than the one without Allegri in the season just ended (15 goals in 41 competitive games). However, there is probably more that separates Dusan from Santi than what unites them, especially in physical aspects.
With Allegri on the bench, Milan will likely have a more vertical game, oriented towards exploiting fast transitions. In this context, Gimenez could do very well, because he attacks the space in behind continuously and fights to protect the ball, to let his team-mates push up.
Put it this way, if Milan were to go out and buy a striker for less than €40m who had 45 goals in 73 league games at his previous club, plus 13 in 20 appearances in European competitions, that would sound and feel like good business.
Those, of course, are Gimenez’s numbers with Feyenoord. It’s food for thought, and further fuel must come from the fact that he will get near enough a full preseason with the rest of the squad and the new coach, so can better assimilate the instructions after a six-month apprenticeship.
Think about the message it would send too, to give up on a player after just a few months. Francesco Camarda would naturally have question marks about the path forged out for him and how much time he will be afforded, while new signings might look and think twice about joining.
We end with the sentiments of the player himself, who was finally given the chance to respond to all of the speculation coming from Italy regarding his future and his place with the Rossoneri.
“I feel at home in Milan, I’m living a dream, I thank God for giving me the chance to be in such a big team as Milan,” he said before the Gold Cup final, won by Mexico against the United States.
“I think there were a lot of rumours that I could leave, but I’m very happy there. I spoke with the management, with the coaching staff, and the idea is that I stay. I will try to show my best version, because I don’t want to waste an opportunity like this.”
To us, that sounds like a striker who is very much still fired up and wants to repay the investment, both economically and in terms of trust. There is no desire to give up and seek refuge elsewhere, only the desire to rewrite a script that has wronged him so far.
