Why Jeremy Menez Will Spend 1 More Season at AC Milan
When AC Milan score, the television cameras often pan to unavailable players sitting in the stands. When that has happened this season, Jeremy Menez always appears. And, while the Frenchman retains a nonchalant air, he will be bristling inside at not being out there, creating and scoring.
Milan have started the 2015-16 campaign without one of their best players from last year. Menez was the club’s top scorer last season, hitting a personal best tally of 16 league goals, but injury has ruled him out until next February.
As a result, the 28-year-old now only enters San Siro on a matchday dressed in casual clothes, forced to watch on intently as his team-mates forge ahead without him.
As immersed in the spectacle he may be, Menez must also be enveloped with frustration whenever Giacomo Bonaventura plays a defence-splitting pass or Alessio Cerci skips beyond his marker. It could—and in the ideal scenario, should—have been him.
Prior to the injury woes that have ruled him out for at least half of this season, Menez was set to play an important role in a crucial period for Milan.
Sinisa Mihajlovic replaced Filippo Inzaghi as head coach during the summer and was immediately tasked with guiding the club back into Serie A’s top three and Champions League football.
Speculating in order to accumulate, Milan invested heavily in new players to bolster Mihajlovic’s chances of achieving that objective, bringing in the likes of Carlos Bacca, Andrea Bertolacci and Alessio Romagnoli for significant transfer fees.
Amid all the change, Menez was expected to remain. His influence grew last season despite Milan’s stuttering and now, with quality team-mates around him and a coach cognisant of his best formation, the versatile attacker was predicted by some to thrive.
Milan president Silvio Berlusconi articulated this idea when speaking to reporters, per Football Italia, about Menez’s back injury.
Berlusconi said:
"Menez has this back problem and it’s a real shame.
We thought that he would play behind the new Balotelli and Carlos Bacca to create a new attacking trident.
They were meant to play close together, just six or seven metres apart, with Mario no longer wandering around on the wings the way he did in the past. We were really counting on Menez as a trequartista.
"
Since then circumstances have changed, however. Firstly, Mihajlovic recently altered his tactics, going from 4-3-1-2 to 4-3-3, hence removing the central trequartista role.
Secondly, Bonaventura has played so well this season as Milan’s link between midfield and attack that Menez would have struggled to get back into the team even if they were playing a system that incorporated a trequartista.
Bonaventura has been involved in seven of Milan’s 15 league goals, either scoring or assisting, and has—according to WhoScored.com’s statistics-based ratings—been the team’s best player by far with a score of 7.36.
According to Calciomercato.com (h/t Football Italia), Milan are currently working on a new deal for the attacking midfielder on the back of his superb early-season form. This news could be interpreted rather ominously by Menez, whose own deal runs until 2017.
The length of his contract means that, even if he returns to full fitness early next year and re-establishes himself cohesively somewhere within Mihajlovic’s starting lineup, Menez will only have a few months at the end of this season to justify an extended stay with the club.
Given that, historically, Menez has not been a particularly consistent force, the chances of him returning to the strong form he exhibited last season so quickly after a long lay-off are highly unlikely.
The result of this is, come the end of this season, some serious decisions will have to be made regarding the future.
Menez will have to analyse whether it’s worth him staying with the club for another season and fighting for his place. This will, ultimately, depend upon how much playing time he sees at the end of this campaign and what the club’s plans are in the transfer window.
Milan, meanwhile, will have to choose between the following options. They could offer Menez an extended contract; they could keep him without offering a new deal and risk losing him on a free transfer the following summer; or they could cash in by selling him.
Every week that Milan play well in Menez’s absence is another step towards the Frenchman’s obsolescence at San Siro. If this continues, the club may indeed opt to explore the possibility of selling him for a fee in the summer of 2016.
It’s extremely unfortunate but, by the time Menez returns from injury, he might well be playing for his immediate future.
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