Arkadiusz Milik, Juventus forward, enters the 2025-26 Serie A season in a position that the club's transfer activity is doing little to improve. With Jonathan David reportedly attracting interest from Aston Villa — a loan with an obligation to buy — and Juventus simultaneously pursuing Joshua Zirkzee, the 32-year-old Pole finds himself squeezed not by one rival for his place but by the entire direction of the squad's rebuild under Luciano Spalletti.

The numbers that define Milik's season so far are unsparing: two appearances, no goals, no assists, an average rating of 6.20. For a forward of his experience, those figures do not describe a slow start — they describe a man operating at the absolute edge of a manager's plans. Spalletti's Juventus sit sixth in Serie A on 69 points from 38 matches, a record of 19 wins, 12 draws, and 7 defeats. The goals-for column reads 61. Milik has contributed none of them.

What makes his situation structurally difficult is the nature of the business Juventus are conducting around him. The club has secured Jhon Lucumí from Bologna for a reported €20m including bonuses — a defensive reinforcement, not a forward, but it signals that the club is spending with purpose and selectivity. The David-to-Aston Villa link, if it materialises, would remove one competitor from the attacking roster. Yet Zirkzee's name appearing in the same transfer window suggests Juventus are not looking to Milik to fill that gap.

Spalletti confirmed in pre-season that Douglas Luiz would likely remain at the club after impressing in training, which at least clarifies the midfield picture. The attacking picture is less settled, but Milik's AI overall rating of 70 — against a potential ceiling of just 45 — tells its own story: the club's internal modelling does not see significant upside from the player going forward. That is a cold metric, but it aligns with what the transfer window is saying out loud.

Milik is not finished as a footballer. At 32, with his injury history, he has always been a player whose value arrives in concentrated bursts rather than sustained accumulation. The question Spalletti faces is whether those bursts are still reliable enough to justify a roster spot as the Bianconeri push for European qualification. The transfer activity suggests the answer is being quietly negotiated rather than firmly given.

If David departs and Zirkzee arrives, Milik becomes the third-choice striker on a squad that finished sixth. That is a position from which recoveries are rare.