The best new player at Milan this season might well be an old one, as Susy Campanale feels Samuel Chukwueze is finally ready to flourish.
The focus has rightly all been on the reinforcements that the Rossoneri are bringing in to fit new coach Paulo Fonseca’s style of football and cover the gaping hole that Olivier Giroud had been valiantly trying to cover for the last two years. Alvaro Morata can do that, with Strahinja Pavlovic in defence and it seems increasingly likely Emerson Royal to provide more attacking thrust at right-back.
However, the most exciting change may well be a player who arrived a year ago. It was a decent investment for the club, shelling out €20m plus up to a further €8m in add-ons to secure sought-after winger Chukwueze from Villarreal after a season where he had scored 13 goals and provided 11 assists in 50 competitive games. Great things were expected of the Nigeria international at San Siro, but he barely made a blip in his debut Italian campaign.
There are reasons for this, of course. Along with being slowly settled in and the absolute explosion of Christian Pulisic playing on the right wing, he also had injury problems and missed large chunks of the season on international duty at the Africa Cup of Nations. Chukwueze hardly ever played a full 90 minutes in the Milan jersey, either used as a late substitute when his teammates were flagging or pushed into the starting XI during an injury crisis. Just as he started to make an impact with his only goal in March and two assists, another injury struck and ended his term early.
Those were promising flashes of what he could do, but what we’ve seen so far in pre-season is precisely why Milan invested that much in the Nigerian. The pace that made him famous is finally back now he’s fully fit, the cut inside from the right flank to shoot or cross with the left foot makes him a little more unpredictable than Pulisic in that role. It also means he could feasibly play as a trequartista in a more central position, or even a False 9.
The 25-year-old provided two assists in a 3-2 win over Manchester City and scored the only goal to beat Real Madrid too. His confidence is sky high and it shows, as at last he is taking opponents on and beating them. This is something the Diavolo have been sorely lacking in recent years, relying entirely on Rafael Leao to take that initiative, when too often the Portuguese winger just lets his head drop and floats out of the game the moment something goes wrong.
The fact that Chukwueze can also play on the left might shake the 10 out of his comfortable stupor a little bit. For too long, Milan looked only to Leao for that change of pace or moment of creativity, a situation that poured pressure on him and left the team looking otherwise flat. This is precisely why Chukwueze was signed, to represent a proto-Leao approach on the right flank, to stop their attack being so lop-sided.
After all, the general mood in the Rossoneri camp last season was deflated and it is only natural that wouldn’t help a new signing settle in, having moved to a different league and distracted too by the Africa Cup of Nations. He is getting a clean slate now and seems ready to hit the ground running, generating more excitement than many of the new signings. The stage is set and 2024-25 can be truly the campaign for Chukwueze to make his mark in the Milan jersey.
