Milan have allowed Mike Maignan and Adrien Rabiot four additional days of holiday, a decision Tuttosport reports has left many inside and around the club stunned.
The move lands at an awkward moment. With the mercato drawing criticism and the mood around the club already tense, any misstep carries extra weight, and this one has landed squarely on that nerve.
According to Tuttosport, the disparity is what makes the choice jarring. At Inter, by contrast, all of the players involved in international duty over the summer are already back and training with the squad. Milan, meanwhile, have signed off on a request that, per the report, caught everyone off guard.
Maignan’s case draws particular scrutiny. The goalkeeper missed Franco Baresi’s funeral, and Tuttosport notes that cutting his holiday short to attend would at least have offered some justification for extra time off. As it stands, the extension is harder to explain.
The practical concern is preparation. Both players are now set to return with less than a week before Milan’s opening fixture of the season, an allowance not extended to any of their teammates. Whether that is enough time to be ready is the obvious question, and the report is sceptical it will be.
For a club already under pressure and short on goodwill, granting two players a head-start on the beach while the rest of the squad works is the kind of decision that invites exactly the reaction it has drawn.