Ruben Amorim has walked into a mess at San Siro. Milan finished last season without Champions League football, scored just 53 Serie A goals — fewer than any other top-six side — and are now staring down a summer where half the attack could walk out the door. The rebuild isn't optional. It's overdue.
The squad changes go beyond the forward line. Luka Modric is gone, already off to captain Croatia at the 2026 World Cup. Adrien Rabiot is a target for Allegri's Napoli. Youssouf Fofana, who never quite lived up to the billing, may follow. But it's the attacking department that will define whether Amorim's project has any real foundation.
The Leao question no one can answer yet
Rafael Leao spent much of the season looking like a player already mentally elsewhere. His cryptic social media post about his future last month said everything without saying anything. Premier League clubs are circling, and for a while an exit felt inevitable.
Then Amorim arrived. According to Calciomercato, the new boss plans to meet Leao face-to-face when he returns from the World Cup. Amorim reportedly believes he can rebuild Leao's career and make him the centerpiece of his 3-4-2-1 system. That's a big bet on a player who had a genuinely poor season — but Leao at his best is one of the three or four most dangerous wingers in Europe. The talent hasn't disappeared. The motivation clearly had.
Whether Amorim can reignite that is the defining question of Milan's summer. If Leao leaves, the rebuild gets significantly harder and significantly more expensive.
A striker problem with no clean solution
Santiago Gimenez arrived from Feyenoord with genuine hype and delivered almost nothing. His time at Milan looks finished. The question is what — or who — comes next.
Robert Lewandowski was the dream answer. He's leaving Barcelona on a free, he's proven at the highest level, and he fits the profile Milan desperately need. But he's apparently heading to Chicago Fire in MLS instead, which tells you everything about how attractive Milan's project looks from the outside right now.
So Milan have pivoted to Nicolo Zaniolo, recently signed permanently by Udinese from Galatasaray. He fits Amorim's system on paper. He also scored five goals in 32 Serie A games last season. That's not a striker. That's a gamble dressed up as a solution.
Francesco Camarda is back from his loan at Lecce and could get a bigger role — which is either exciting or alarming depending on how much faith you have in Milan's development pipeline. Youth potential is not a substitute for a proven No.9, and Milan's goal tally last season proved it.
Pulisic and Nkunku: Time's running out
Christian Pulisic arrived from Chelsea in 2023 and was genuinely one of Serie A's better attacking players for the first eighteen months. His last Serie A goal came in December 2025. That's a long, costly dry spell for a player whose contract expires next summer — meaning this window is Milan's last realistic chance to sell at a meaningful fee rather than watch him walk for nothing.
Liverpool and Tottenham have reportedly shown interest. A return to the Premier League makes sense for both parties. Milan get a transfer fee before it's too late; Pulisic gets a fresh start somewhere his output will be managed properly.
Christopher Nkunku's situation is murkier. His first season in Serie A — just one year after leaving Chelsea — disappointed. Xabi Alonso has reportedly spoken to Chelsea about a return to Stamford Bridge, though that feels more like noise than substance at this point. A move to Roma, back in the Champions League, sounds like the more grounded option for a player who needs to rebuild his reputation at a club actively going somewhere.
- Leao: future hinges on Amorim conversation post-World Cup
- Gimenez: expected departure after a failed spell
- Pulisic: contract expires 2027, this summer is the sell window
- Nkunku: Roma link more credible than Chelsea return
- Zaniolo: targeted as attacking option, five goals last season
- Camarda: back from Lecce loan, role unclear
Sporting CP winger Francisco Trincao is also on Milan's radar to plug the wide gaps — but the club needs to sell before they can buy, and right now they have more outgoings than clarity on any of them.
Amorim is a coach with genuine ideas and a system that worked at Sporting. But systems need players who believe in the project. Right now, Milan are a club where several high-profile names are mentally packing their bags. The summer rebuild isn't just tactical — it's cultural. And 53 goals in a top-six finish is the number that captures exactly how broken things got.
