L’Olympic Marseille officially holds his new forward striker. In the papers for several weeks, Arkadiusz Milik is officially from Marseille. The Polish striker from Napoli is on loan for 18 months with an option to buy. According to various media it would amount to 8 million euros with 4 million bonuses.
At 26, he comes to strengthen an offensive sector Olympian in great difficulty this season with only 26 goals scored in 19 matches. Dario Benedetto, holder in point, is notably singled out with only 4 achievements in 25 matches in all competitions this season. His replacement Valère Germain does not convince as well as Luis Henrique on whom André Villas-Boas does not seem to count.
READ ALSO. Soccer. Who is Arkadiusz Milik, the Naples striker targeted by OM?
Arriving at Napoli in 2016, Milik scored 48 goals in 122 appearances for the Italian club. His 2018-2019 season remains his most successful with 20 goals scored. The main unknown on the Marseille side concerns his physical form since the Pole, after being excluded from the group at the start of the season, has not played a single meeting since this summer except 337 minutes with the Polish selection.
A physical form in question
In what state of form is it? The Pole inevitably lacks rhythm, but OM, which remains on two humiliating defeats at the Vélodrome against Nîmes (2-1) and Lens (1-0), lacks time.
Milik is in any case qualified to play in Monaco on Saturday, for the 21st day of L1.
Marseille fans will also keep an anxious eye on the knees of the former Ajax Amsterdam player. The one on the left let go in October 2016, when he had just made a thunderous debut with Naples, and the one on the right gave way a year later, in September 2017.
These two serious injuries are a real cause for concern but they did not stop the Pole, who returned to an excellent level during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons, with respectively 20 and 15 goals in all competitions with Napoli.
While Benedetto is in the midst of a crisis of confidence and OM scores very little (26 goals in 19 L1 matches), the arrival of Milik therefore seems to be a big hit by the new sports director Pablo Longoria.
At a time when Marseille is scolding, against the club, its president, its players and its coach, the Spanish leader has succeeded in what looks like a faultless since the start of the transfer window.
In 15 days, he managed to bring in a right-back (Lirola) to fill an obvious gap, to save part of the enormous salary of Strootman, who left on loan at Genoa, and to drive the hoped forward to the Vélodrome.
Risks
However, on paper, Milik evolves in spheres to which OM does not have access. The list of recent contenders – Juventus, Roma or Atlético Madrid – attests to this.
But while some clubs may have been tempted to wait until June and the end of his contract, the Pole needed to play to go to the Euro. By offering Naples a few million euros that the Italian club could not have claimed in June, Longoria and OM have therefore skillfully taken advantage of a narrow window of fire.
The bet was tempting. With a reasonable financial effort, OM attracted a European-level striker, still young and therefore likely to both have a big impact on sport and ultimately generate potential economic added value.
But there are risks. Marseilles finances are fragile and the large salary of the Pole (estimated at 400,000 euros gross) will weigh.
Then, the last matches showed that the current OM were in crisis in all the lines and lacked everything, quality, ideas, character… Milik will not be able to change everything. But if he is the “grantatakan”, he will undoubtedly have solved OM’s biggest problem.
– .
