AC Milan have now ‘accepted defeat’ in their pursuit of Marcus Rashford, according to a fresh report from ESPN this morning.
Despite heading into the January window as the major favourites to sanction the Manchester United outcast’s arrival, Milan are now prioritising a move for Manchester City wantaway Kyle Walker.
With room for only one more non-EU player in their squad, they’ve had no choice but to turn their full attention to Rashford’s cross-city compatriot after learning of the forward’s preference to join Barcelona – though their precarious financial situation means fringe players will need to be offloaded before the February 3 deadline.
However, the Italian giants aren’t closed off to doing business with United in another form…
Milan begin targeting Rashford alternatives

Mark Ogden adds in his piece that Milan are now targeting £100.5 million duo Joshua Zirkzee (£36.5m) and Rasmus Hojlund (£64m) on loan, as well as Chelsea’s out-of-favour Joao Felix.
Zirkzee, 23, was previously linked with Juventus, with Fabrizio Romano revealing last week that the club made a last-ditch attempt to sign him before pursuing Randal Kolo Muani from Paris Saint-Germain.
As for Hojlund, he has endured a torrid term in front of goal and has found the back of the net only twice in 17 Premier League appearances.
Should United agree to offload either attacker, a replacement is imperative considering the lack of options Ruben Amorim may have at his disposal for the second half of the campaign; Rashford is expected to depart imminently, Antony is on the verge of signing for Real Betis on loan, and Alejandro Garnacho is being heavily pursued by Napoli.
hojlund has scored 2 goals from an xg of 2. he has had less shots than dalot and casemiro. fernandes has taken almost 40 shots, garnacho 30.
he can’t be considered to have had a torrid time ‘in front’ of goal, he simply hasn’t been passed to thanks to our so called creative players blasting the ball towards goal, usually ending up in row Z.
his movement could be better but remember that players don’t pass to an area, they pass to a player or in his vicinity.
and what happemed when hojlund was dropped? united had one shot on target and that was a penalty – the problem is not the strikers, the problem lies behind them, too many players who are either greedy or just cannot lay on a good opportunity for their strikers.
isak has an xg of 12 and 13 goals or something like that – he is not outscoring his xg, he is just on the money. yes he certainly gets into better positions but he also has a team that gets the ball to him in good positions. he has had 40+ shots to hojlunds 10.
the problem is with the likes of dalot, garnacho, mainoo, bruno to a lesser extent. all these playsers behind the strikers create basically nothing of value.