United, Chelsea and Liverpool are sorted at his position. City possibly too - although Pep shares some of Wenger’s fetishes. Real have a million players here. I’m not seeing a ton of suitors that would make sense. We desperately need this kind of player, and he would grow with Arteta’s project. If we paid 50 or 60, we would get up to double that money in 5 years. He’d spark so much life into both Pépé and Aubameyang

When AC Milan gave Andrea Pirlo a Cartier pen as a leaving present, he was told: “For goodness sake, don’t use it to sign for Juventus.”

After 10 years at the club, the coolest footballer in history twirled it around his fingers, affronted by the lavish gift. Still in shock, il Maestro didn’t listen and soon afterwards was pictured leaning over a thick contract booklet, poised to scribble his name on a piece of paper bearing a Juventus letterhead.

“I’ll never say which pen I used,” he winked in his biography.

Since then, the director’s chair otherwise known as the role of regista in the lexicon of calcio has been every bit as cursed at Milan as the wearer of their No 9 jersey in the wake of Pippo Inzaghi’s 2012 retirement. It has passed from player to player without anyone making it his own in a convincing manner. Dutch duo Mark van Bommel and Nigel de Jong were demolition men, not architects like Pirlo. As for Riccardo Montolivo and Lucas Biglia, the pair of them suffered with injury not to mention a close association with the team’s decline.

The standard Pirlo set remains outlandishly high, unmatchable perhaps. But almost a decade after he hopped on the Frecciarossa train from Milano Centrale to Torino Porta Nuova, Milan now have a player willing to take on the mantle and step into his boots. “I like everything about this role, because you’re at the heart of everything,” Ismael Bennacer tells The Athletic. An ECG would show Milan pulsing to the 22-year-old’s beat — his team’s play murmuring, fluttering and racing depending on the tempo of his passing.

“It’s my second year playing in Italy as a regista,” the former Arsenal Under-23s midfielder explains, “I’m still working at it. I think I’m improving. I’m definitely learning a lot.” Bennacer comes across as studious. He pays close attention to other players with the same vocation operating at elite clubs across Europe. “I watch a lot of (Paris Saint-Germain’s) Marco Verratti,” he says, “and Thiago Alcantara (of Bayern Munich) too. Thiago’s so, so good.”

Magnets to the ball and, as such, the pressing game of their opponent, deep-lying playmakers figure as the centre of gravity for their team and the match in general. Harass them. Force them into mistakes. Stop them and you shut down their team, or so the thinking goes. The role invites a lot of pressure and requires great responsibility. “I have to give the ball away as little as possible,” Bennacer says. “Zero. To do that, I have to be concentrated whenever I get the ball. I’ve always got to be in the zone. I have to read the game. I need to look first and look early. I do all that already but I have got to get even better at it.”

Listening to him make those observations, it’s hard not to think about Verratti, whose nickname il Gufetto — “Little Owl” — really captures the image of him swivelling his head around to check the passing options available to him. The diminutive Italian compares the role to that of a tight-rope walker who, on account of modern football’s trend of splitting centre-backs, can’t always rely on a safety net being there to catch a mistake.

In true Verratti style, Bennacer picked up 14 yellow cards in Serie A this season, a figure “bettered” only by Roma’s aggressive centre-back Gianluca Mancini. The need for greater care in his game was starkest early in the campaign, when he gave away a couple of penalties in a 3-1 home defeat to Fiorentina. However, don’t labour under the misapprehension he is some kind of Algerian Paul Scholes, leaping into challenges with poor timing. On the contrary, the reason Milan coach Stefano Pioli rates Bennacer as a “complete” midfielder is precisely because of his rare ability as a filter and ball-winner.

Deep-lying playmakers tend to be thought of as passers and passers alone, and while it’s true the metrics from StatsBomb show Bennacer has the highest xG build-up at Milan and makes more open play passes per 90 than anyone else at the club, the interdiction and hustle he brings are every bit as important to the balance of the team. He interprets his role as “defending, getting on the ball, helping the team impose itself on our opponents and putting a shift in”.

Milan signed Bennacer last August for a reported €16 million on the back of a second season at Empoli in which he made the most recoveries in Serie A. This season, only Lazio’s Lucas Leiva has averaged more tackles and interceptions per 90 among players in the same position and Bennacer is up there with Atalanta’s energetic Swiss international Remo Freuler for pressure regains and counter pressures. In essence, he carries the water and serves out the champagne simultaneously.

“Even though I’m not playing high up the pitch, I could do to be more decisive,” Bennacer admits, aware that one goal all league season is not enough for a midfielder playing 31 games for a club with the ambitions of Milan. Bennacer isn’t blessed with the free-kick-taking ability of Pirlo or contemporaries in his position such as Miralem Pjanic. He doesn’t have to be though. At Milan, he can leave that stuff to Hakan Calhanoglu or Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Taken under Ibrahimovic’s wing since the Swede rejoined the club as a free agent in January, Bennacer claims to have benefited from working in his orbit, although the switch to a two-man tandem in midfield over the winter has enabled him to flourish too. “I feel a little bit freer,” he says. Ibrahimovic has, to some extent, taken the attention and pressure away from Milan’s young players, which has, in turn, allowed them to grow and come into their own. The level of competition has risen at the Milanello training ground as well. “He demands perfection,” Bennacer says. “Always. You can’t make mistakes when Zlatan’s around. He makes you a better player. That’s how we all think about it anyway.”

The 38-year-old ended the season on a high, and Milan’s record since he jetted in from Los Angeles via his homeland is the second-best in the league behind only Atalanta. A goal in the weekend’s season finale against Cagliari made Ibrahimovic the oldest player to ever hit double figures in Serie A (to go with his five assists) and optimism around him being at San Siro again next season is percolating as contract talks intensify.

“When he asks for the ball, I don’t pass it to him, otherwise he’ll have more touches than me,” Bennacer jokes, displaying some of the pluck Ibrahimovic has brought out of his team-mates. “I’m kidding. When you’ve got a player like him on the pitch, you look to get him the ball as quickly as possible even if there’s another solution on. We’re on the same wavelength. I get the ball to him so he can then do what he wants. I look for him a lot.”

As Bennacer heads off on a brief vacation before Milan reconvene for the Europa League qualifiers in September, he has a chance to look over his shoulder and reflect on how far he has come over the last 12 months. Initially, Bennacer was supposed to follow his coach Aurelio Andreazzoli to Genoa after Empoli suffered what felt like an unjust relegation last summer.

Milan were waiting in the wings, however, having been impressed by his poise on Empoli’s visit to San Siro. How players handle the pressure at the Meazza is a valuable indicator of a player’s suitability for both Milan clubs. All too often the bright lights can be overwhelming, but Bennacer is unfazed. “It’s demanding but I like it. I like the crowds, the pressure.”

While playing in front of 75,000 as he did in the Derby della Madonnina is far from a walk in the Parco Sempione, the French-born midfielder got a taste of what it’s like to have a heavy burden of expectation on his shoulders at last summer’s Africa Cup of Nations. “It was the sweetest moment of my career,” Bennacer smiles. Relatively new to the Algeria set-up, he took the team by the scruff of the neck and was named Player of the Tournament as they lifted the trophy, beating team-mate Riyad Mahrez and other big names including Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Kalidou Koulibaly to that honour.

Watching video of Algeria’s triumphant return from Egypt last July, the crowds are the first thing that strike you. They are gloriously pre-pandemic. Raucous celebrations, honking horns, the smell of cordite from let-off flares. “We hadn’t won the Cup of Nations in 29 years,” Bennacer says. “It was only the second time too. There were five million people on the streets. The population of Algiers, the capital, is three million, but there were five million people on the streets. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”

Tracking Bennacer’s ascent, one wonders if there are any regrets at Arsenal, like there have been watching Serge Gnabry thrive in Germany, where the winger leapt from Werder Bremen via Hoffenheim to Bayern Munich. Allowed to go to Empoli in 2017 for just €900,000, Bennacer insists he holds no grudges against his English club. “I had three years left on my deal,” he says, “but I wanted to play and besides, they weren’t against my sale, so I left.”

Arsenal didn’t want to stand in the way of someone who is remembered at London Colney as a reliable professional. His size wasn’t determined a barrier to the first team either, given other players of similar height, such as Santi Cazorla, have managed to establish themselves at the Emirates over the years.

Figuratively, Bennacer has grown in stature since departing England.

Presumably, he didn’t receive a Cartier pen the way Pirlo did as a leaving gift but watching this young and vibrant Milan side, his signature is all over it.

Interview with Bennacer with Athletic if anyone is interested, probably Klaus would. Looking at those stats and obviously how he played this season it's mental we didn't sign him back really and plumped for Torreira instead those days.