Jorge Mendes key as Ruben Amorim requests Gonçalo Ramos and Francisco Trincão at Milan | OneFootball

Newly unveiled Milan head coach Ruben Amorim has personally requested compatriots Gonçalo Ramos and Francisco Trincão as new signings at San Siro.

As reported by La Gazzetta dello Sport, Amorim has full support of RedBird chief Gerry Cardinale, who has handed him a three-year contract with option for another year and, ostensibly, near-full control of player recruitment for the summer.

Markus Krösche, who was expected to join Milan alongside Amorim as sporting director, has rejected terms at the eleventh hour and will remain at Eintracht Frankfurt.

Trincão, as reported by Daniele Longo, is a player Amorim wants to reconnect with at Milan, the two having enjoyed a fruitful, trophy laden spell together at Sporting.

Gonçalo Ramos, meanwhile, is no stranger to Amorim, a former Benfica man himself, and was one of the most in-demand strikers in the red half of the Lisbon before making his move to Paris Saint-Germain. And while he has won almost every major club trophy during his time in Paris, he has never really managed to become a starter in Luis Enrique’s team.

Given Milan’s struggles up the pitch, which are set to result in a mass exodus of forwards in the coming weeks, a slot could open for a striker looking for opportunities like Ramos, with PSG looking to recoup a fee in the region of €40 million for the soon-to-be 25-year-old.

However, the Rossoneri will need to open up funds in order to help Amorim strengthen the squad, to which end Rafa Leão is still expected to be on the market.

Somewhat dark tidings

Anytime a new manager arrives, it’s hard to not look positively to the immediate future and think of how exciting things can be in everything clicks into place.

However, Milan don’t seem like a club in need of a short fix, and Krösche’s last-minute rejection does not inspire confidence as far as hopes of long-term stability and success are concerned.

Amorim in his last stints has shown how well he can do when everyone buys into his ideas, which includes players under him and the people above him in the club hierarchy. He was one of Krösche’s picks for the job, but now that the latter is not joining, the questions is: who makes the call? Managers hardly total control these days, and even when they do, they work within the jurisdiction set up for them by a sporting director above them.

Currently, there’s a chasm between the power-that-be at Milan and the coaching setup, and as we have seen countless of times before elsewhere, this hardly sets up a club for long-term success and, more often than not, ends in disaster.

Recent links regarding Gonçalo Ramos and Francisco Trincão further suggest Jorge Mendes may get to play powerbroker once again. All in all, the odds are beginning to stack heavily against the Rossoneri.

Anshuman Joshi | GIFN