In the early hours of November 14, the 15th round of Serie A will be a highlight match, with Bianconeri Juventus hosting the Blue Eagles Lazio, a battle between the third and second places in the Serie A table. If Juve win, they will be at least in the top three. But before the big war, Lazio got a little unpleasant news. The Milan sports newspaper on November 12 broke the news that Juve had approached Milinkovic's agent Kezhimann yesterday and were willing to offer the Serbian midfielder a contract with an annual salary of 6 million euros.
Milinkovic, 27, has been with Lazio for seven seasons, scoring 63 goals and 58 assists in 313 games in all competitions. However, due to Lazio's strength, Milinkovic has only won one Coppa Italia and two Italian Super Cups so far. Now, his contract expires in the summer of 2024 and Lazio want to renew it, but has not received a positive response from the player.
Milinkovic has continued to excel this season, scoring five goals and providing seven assists in 19 games in all competitions, including three goals and seven assists in 13 Serie A games, ranking first in Serie A in assists. Such a performance has also made Milinkovic favored by many giants, and Juventus is the most positive one. Their interest in Milinkovic has a long history, with an affair with him in almost every transfer window, and this time, Juve are ready to make a real move. Milinkovic's current annual salary is €3.5 million + bonus, which is almost half the difference between Juve's €6 million. In addition, although Lazio want to complete the extension of Milinkovic's contract, they can only offer a new contract of about 4.5 million euros at most. This figure clearly does not impress Milinkovich.
Standing 1.91m tall, with strong physical fitness, excellent foot skills, passing and shooting are first-class, especially the ability to hold the ball and advance, looking at Serie A only Pogba, who returned to Juve without signing this summer. Coincidentally, Milinkovic received the nickname "White Pogba" for his outstanding quality, and it seems that Juve intend to bring both black and white Pogba to the Allianz Arena to create their own super midfield combination. If this goal is achieved, Juve's quality will be quite terrible.
In fact, the reason why Juve seriously considered bringing in Milinkovic is inseparable from the divine assist of French midfielder Rabiot. Rabiot has been extraordinarily good this season, scoring five goals and providing one assist in 15 games, equalling his single-season goals since joining Juve and just one goal away from his career single-season goal-scoring record.
However, Rabiot's contract with Juve expires next summer, and the Bianconeri naturally want to complete his contract extension, but Rabiot, who thinks highly of himself, wants an annual salary of 10 million euros after tax plus a signing fee of 10 million euros, which is a request that greatly exceeds Juve's psychological bottom line. It is precisely because of this that they turned to Milinkovic to prepare for the expiration of Rabiot's contract to stay in the team. After all, Milinkovich is no less powerful than Rabiot or even slightly better in strength, but his annual salary is almost half. How could Juve not be moved by such a good price and low price?