No starts, no problem – Should Chukwueze be comfortable with being a bench player in Milan?

Super Eagles and AC Milan winger, Samuel Chukwueze, has admitted he’s content with sacrificing his playing time to put his team first , Soccernet.ng reports.

The 25-year-old has started just nine league games for the Rossoneri this season, scoring three goals from a total of 23 outings, which isn’t convincing.

While many younger footballers approaching their prime will want to play in as many games as possible, Chukwueze’s dilemma is quite different.

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“The priority is the group and the solidity of our team; then, obviously I would like to play a bit more, but the team comes first,” Chukwueze said prior to Milan’s clash against Fiorentina, as revealed by Sempre Milan.

In the game against David De Gea’s side, the former Villareal man came off the bench to play just ten minutes. To put it into perspective, Chukwueze has played just 190 minutes of club football since the turn of the year, equaling just about two full games plus extra time.

Milan splashed 25 million euros on the Nigerian winger in 2023, but he’s yet to impress and was nearly on the way out in January. Alex Iwobi’s Fulham were interested in the fleet-footed winger, but the delay of the transfer window meant they ran out of time to complete the deal.

As per Sports Witness, Chukwueze already had his bags packed, as Milan boss, Sergio Conceicao, isn’t fully convinced by his abilities, and the club are looking to ship him off.

Aston Villa, Everton and even West Ham are currently monitoring the transfer situation of the 2015 FIFA U-17 World Cup winner.

For the sake of prolonging his career amongst Europe’s elite clubs for much longer, quite simply, yes, but the issue runs deeper than that.

Milan are nowhere near the club they used to be, and several of their players, including Theo Hernandez and Rafael Leao, are struggling, hinting at a systematic problem, but even these players have had bright sparks in the past. For Chukwueze, this isn’t the case.

The happy-go-lucky youngster that dumped Villareal for Milan is yet to replicate the form that saw him account for over 60 goal contributions with the Yellow Submarines.

Leaving Milan won’t solve Chukwueze’s problems. Rather, his performances have to show how much of a top player he’s willing to be.

With offers from the Saudi Pro League, the left-footed winger faces the test of fighting for trophies in Europe or heading to the Middle East to secure life post-retirement for himself and his family.

Should he choose the latter, the chances of his consistent presence in the Super Eagles team will reduce drastically, and at the age of 25, it would be unfortunate to see him phased out of the Nigerian Football team.