{"id":269948,"date":"2025-11-08T00:51:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T00:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/269948\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T00:51:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T00:51:20","slug":"a-smile-he-didnt-have-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/269948\/","title":{"rendered":"A smile he didn&#8217;t have before"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Sky journalist has shared a more optimistic outlook on Mike Maignan\u2019s future, amid talk that his AC Milan exit is a mere matter of time.<\/p>\n<p>The reports that have been circulating regarding Maignan\u2019s contract situation have been rather bleak. His contract expires at the end of the season, while negotiations over a renewal do not seem to be moving anywhere, even if there is talk of <a href=\"https:\/\/sempremilan.com\/tare-allegri-hope-convince-maignan-renew\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">one last attempt to convince him to stay<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, this morning\u2019s edition of Tuttosport even stated that Milan will be <a href=\"https:\/\/sempremilan.com\/milan-scout-suzuki-parma-chelsea-lurking\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">watching Zion Suzuki of Parma up close<\/a> during Saturday night\u2019s game at the Stadio Ennio Tardini. The management are looking out for potential replacements for the Frenchman, which perhaps tells its own story.<\/p>\n<p>A smile appears<\/p>\n<p>Sky\u2019s Peppe Di Stefano spoke about Maignan in an interview on the Milan Hello YouTube channel and the picture that he painted was not all doom and gloom, contrary to the reports circulating.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaignan was all set to leave Milan in the past year, I know that was the intention, then two things happened: Chelsea didn\u2019t make the right offer and Massimiliano Allegri intervened, he spoke with Maignan and there was an immediate connection between the parties,\u201d he said (via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.milannews.it\/news\/di-stefano-maignan-e-tornato-felice-milanello-e-tornato-un-posto-sano-596457\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MilanNews<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know they told each other to focus on the pitch, not on the contract or on the fact that the deal is expiring, they\u2019re moving forward well. From what I understand, there are no particular open discussions, also because the boy evidently didn\u2019t like Milan\u2019s behaviour last year.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"750\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Maignan-Napoli.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-312957 has-webp\" alt=\"Maignan Napoli\"   style=\"aspect-ratio:1200\/750;max-width:1200px\"\/>Photo by Marco Luzzani\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey offered him a certain amount of money on the contract and after a few months and a few too many mistakes, the amount, from what I understand, was slightly modified. I think the boy is tough and rigid from that point of view.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s not tough and rigid at Milanello, he\u2019s regained a smile that he didn\u2019t have before. Mike has been happy since this summer, he says hello, something he did less last year (laughs), he spends time with the fans, he spends time with the people, Milanello is a happy place again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I\u2019m not just talking about the players, I\u2019m talking about the employees, the young people who perhaps don\u2019t have a microphone to talk about it, the desire to work has returned. The desire to do that extra thing, that extra quarter of an hour of work, has returned.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Sky journalist has shared a more optimistic outlook on Mike Maignan\u2019s future, amid talk that his AC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-269948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}