The Rade Krunic saga is finally about to come to an end with the midfielder set to join Fenerbahce on a permanent deal, but the way AC Milan have handled things deserves scrutiny.
We start from a perhaps controversial: Milan sold Krunic six months late, and as a result they were forced to let him go for a price that is arguably well below the value they should have received.
It is necessary to start from this assumption, made as always with the benefit of hindsight, to understand in depth what are the dynamics that prevail at Milan during the mercato and the mistakes that were made.
The Krunic deal doesn’t shift the balance seismically, it’s true, and if done in the right time it could have brought around €6-7m more into Milan’s coffers – as opposed to the reported €3m plus bonuses – which is not a mind-boggling figure.
However, what happened with the Bosnian represents an anomalous precedent, made up of contradictions and positions that ultimately saw Milan emerge defeated. Our colleagues at SempreMilan.it have broken down the matter…
The summer
To fully understand the issue we need to take a step back, or maybe two, going back to the end of last season which was certainly the most positive year Krunic played at Milan. The Bosnian midfielder had become a key element within Stefano Pioli’s team, which caused some surprise.
The former Empoli man was labelled as a ‘balancer’ between the defensive and attacking phases, so much so that it pushed Pioli to modify the 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-3, thus introducing the presence of a deeper-lying player which would be Krunic.
Ismael Bennacer’s injury obviously did the rest by pushing Krunic even further into the sphere of Pioli’s most important players, so much so that it often led commentators and experts to conceive and repeat until exhaustion the phrase: “Krunic is the only one in able to do that role so well.”
We must add to this that Krunic almost always responded to the call, making himself truly essential for this Milan who sold Tonali in the summer before acquiring not one, not two, but three midfielders: Yunus Musah, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Tijjani Reijnders.
The heat of mid-August arrived and the imponderable did too. Krunic, backed by Pioli and the management and a key part of the plans, decided that his €1.2m net per season salary was too low for a player who was a candidate to play 40 games in 2023-24.
The renewal
He asked for a pay rise, a move compliant with the rules of the market and getting fair recompense, but which was then transformed into a theatrical piece. His request for renewal was answered ‘Let’s see’ by CEO Giorgio Furlani the first time, then also the second time.
On the third occasion he brought to the meeting with the management a piece of paper with the writing ‘€3.5m net per season from Fenerbahce’ which was another twist. The reaction of the management, having recovered from the shock, was to wait for an offer to arrive at their desk.
The requests of the Turkish club were listened to, also trying to negotiate on the price (which later reached €10m) but at the same time they tried to understand together with Pioli what Krunic’s departure meant on a tactical level.
This is where the first cracks in the relationship between Milan and the Bosnian formed, given they would not sell him unless they got their price while also being unwilling to match the salary, and the cracks would only widen from there.
The mistakes
The summer passed with Krunic still at Milan despite the offers, with the same salary and no renewal signed. That was the first mistake.
The season begins along the same lines as the previous one with the Bosnian still at the centre of the project and – given Bennacer’s injury – without credible alternatives apart from the sporadic and not very consistent signs from Yacine Adli and Tommaso Pobega. Second mistake.
Untouchability, however, is a double-edged sword that glorifies you when things are going well and condemns you when the boat starts to take on water. Krunic’s performances, especially in the Champions League when the pace doubles, started to be insufficient if not downright harmful.
As the weeks passed by, Krunic seemed to be downgraded from the shelf of being an intelligent and perhaps underrated player to just being a normal part of the rotations. The third strike.
The collapse
From then on it was a vertical collapse. Krunic still had not received any truly acceptable renewal offer, which fuelled his frustration and – in the words of La Gazzetta dello Sport – caused him to ‘mentally abandon’ being a Milan player.
Fenerbahce knew things had turned sour, and so it was no longer the Turkish club’s management that were knocking on Milan’s doors, but vice versa.
Now the midfielder has the upper hand, so the €10m from Fener or €12m from Lyon that could have been obtained in the summer vanished just as quickly as the midfielder did from the rotations.
Unfortunately, Milan were left having to draw a pitiful veil on the conclusion of an outgoing operation that satisfied everyone except them.
Well written! Spot on
I don’t think there’s a need to split atoms here. He’s been here for a minute and the time came to drift apart like ships in the sea.
Thanks to him for his service. Good Luck.
Yeah I agree
The biggest and only mistake was thinking that krunic was good enough to be a starter. Hiw whole career he has never been good enough to be a starter and yet a team like milan thought he could be? On top of that, why should he get a pay raise? He’s not up to the level of starting and that’s why he failed miserably. If he would have accepted a sub role and small wages I wouldn’t have mind keeping him, but it would have been totally outrageous to give him 3m in wages. Good that he’s gone
We should have gotten rid of Krunic last summer.
Pioli, Pioli’d us again, by forcing them to keep his son on the squad.
Pioli’s son (Krunic) threw a tantrum because he was going to get more money elsewhere. So he decided to make a stink and not play, or when forced to, play with half intensity.
The end result? We got Pioli’d and Moneyball’d both at the same time. and the worst part of it is, it was Krunic who caused it. Even a weak backup caused this much of a disturbance.
Every decision that Cardinale and Furlani has been the wrong one.
Maldini – what a mistake. what a huge huge huge mistake. There is a recent elon musk quote that I’d like to say here to Cardinale, but I won’t post it. But you know what it is.
Pioli – should have been fired in December. Pioli’s time is up. We’re just bleeding out now and will continue until he is jettisoned.
Injuries – Don’t forget all the injuries that keep piling up thanks to the trainings that Pioli WILL NOT change and WILL NOT fire anyone because, well, Pioli.
Pioli genius tactics – LB as CB. RB as LB. RB as midfielder. Invert everyone and push them forward, forget about defense. Invert Maignan and send him forward. The guy thinks he’s guardiola but only has 10% of the coaching talent and far worse players.
Honestly, I didn’t even know inverted CB’s was a thing.
Moncada – should go back to being a scout/DB analyst. This guys only shtick is moneyball, and it’s backfired miserably. Demote yourself dude. I blame this guy more than anyone else honestly.
Moneyball – No. It already cost us this season. Look at the moneyball signings this year. Only one has panned out (Pulisic).
Reijnders plays every single game and has absolutely nothing to show for it. Pass merchant at best. Both Tonali and Kessie make this guy look like a primavera player. He plays every single game. How many assists? goals?
Chukwueze – nearly 30m (20+8). We have primavera players SMOKING him. Moneyball is a joke.
Why exactly did we buy Okafor? What for? What position? How is the guy injured every 2 days?
The rest? Mediocre at best. Moneyball epically failed us this year and all roads lead back to Moncada. To me? His ego is bigger than his love for Milan. He’s not doing the right thing, he’s doing the flashy things to get him noticed.
Pioli lovers would be yet blind to see all the fact this guy has just outlined! Pioli thinks he’s a genius, by manipulating players natural position.. and what have we in return, miserable play, failed experiment, lack of plan b ….losses upon losses
Well said, my friend! I can’t take anything off of what you said you said.
“Moneyball – No. It already cost us this season. Look at the moneyball signings this year. Only one has panned out (Pulisic). ”
Sportiello has done what was asked of him and Reijnders is basically glued to the starting line-up.
I agree with most with what your saying except reijnders. For one the guy has played every single game. Secondly and most importantly he’s been played out of position the whole season. When he came, Reijnders openly said his weak point is the defensive phase of the game. What does genius pioli do? Play him in a defensive position! If you gave that guy a free roaming midfield position or as the attacking midfielder he would be a fantastic player. You can see that he rarely loses the ball and passes great but he’s limited to what he can do because of pioli and it just angers me!
I’ve been complaining for months now that why are we playing loftus in a attacking role and reijnders in a defensive role! Loftus has the physical attributes to play more defensively and reijnders has the characteristics to play defensively. But then again, genius pioli is playing everyone out of position.
I would just absolutely love it if one game we played a 4 2 3 1
Theo cb cb calabria
Loftus bennacer(musah)
Pulisic reijnders leao
Giroud
And play a true 4 2 3 1, none of this bs 4 3 3 in the defensive phase. Play like we did when we won the scudetto. Just one game like that would show how much better this team actually is and how much pioli is holding us back
RLC does not possess adequate defensive qualities. He has no urgency and discipline in his game. When he is having a good day he could be a genius going forward doing all kinds of spontaneously amazing moves. But on a day when he is low on energy and missing the smell of dried grass then he will just stand still and watch life go by, especially when he has no possession.
I understand that, but I feel like we’d be more successful converting him into a deeper role because of is physical presence. Plus he doesn’t like to run around as much
Yeah bro. RLC isn’t a defensive player. Tons of people just see his physique and assume. But he isn’t a good defender. We simply don’t have a defensive midfield besides Bennecer. Musah has never played in a double pivot in his life and isn’t a defensive midfielder either. I don’t what these people expect. We can’t play a 4231 with no defensive midfielders. The only reason that worked when we won the title was Kessie. Plain and simple. Without a player like him we cannot use the 4231 effectively. We saw this last season. We’d see it again this season. The 433 is the most used formation by top teams and we have the player profiles for it. Thinking otherwise is insanity and just shows a complete lack of knowledge of our players.
This is 💯 % Pioli’s blunder. Board actually wanted to sell him in summer plus player himself told the club that he wants to go and make more money. Aaaaand Pioli came with the brain of a bird and forced the club to keep him.
I really want to see Maldinis Heir now.
Where are you? What happened to your ‘scudetto winners’ ? Do you have any shame left still? Or you still want to give a head to Pioli and and his son?
Pioli is dumb for thinking he’s good enough to start, he thinks Krunic is a great player while the truth is that he’s average, and because of that he refuses lucrative offers for him, and refuses to sign a real starting quality CDM. Now we don’t have a starting quality CDM, and we don’t have the additional 10 million we would have recieved if the management had sold him in the summer. #PioliOut
Not a lot of Pioli fans at the moment 🙂
Excellent article
This article is not a poor reflection on Krunic – good for him if he got the deal he wanted and one that we wouldn’t give. He always served us well. This article demonstrates another poor decision by this inexperienced and may I say incompetent, management team. To not sell Krunic for the 10-12M in the summer and get his replacement when we had the chance was foolish. Now we get less than half that amount. Great job Georgie.
The first part of the article is actually the most important. If I got offered triple my salary to do the same job…hmmm I wonder where I’d be. Then the boss tells you he needs you as a key employee in the workplace and to stay… knowing u can make more elsewhere….but then low ball you on wages (given your contract gonna be up soon) after you stayed on to help out and NOT ABANDONED the team. How would you feel? Its not like he’s asking to be the highest paid. 12th highest meaning a whole team would still have been paid better. All the other player better than him were being paid higher smh.
Bro, what are you even talking about? You’re kind of insane. Tonali is an average player. He was one of the main reasons we did so poorly in the winter last year. You have short term memory loss or something. Tonali wasn’t great or amazing or world class or anything like that. He’s an average player at best. And he was banned from playing. If we still had him we’d be royally fucked. Plus, Tonali wanted to go. NFC negotiated with his agent before contacting the club.
Reijnders is a fantastic player. He’s playing far better than Tonali did his first season. All he needs to do is work on his finishing, that’s it. We’ll see more assists this season, especially if Jovic plays more and Leao gets his shooting boots on.
Pioli’s tactics are no different than any premier league club this season. I don’t get why people are upset that he’s bringing modern tactics and a faster game to the Serie A. Start watching other leagues or something. Y’all like to complain he doesn’t have any strategy but it’s clear what he’s trying to do.
Injuries could be blamed on Pioli but that doesn’t explain why this past year was the single worst year for injuries in the top 5 leagues ever. This isn’t a team issue. It’s a structural issue affecting all top teams in some degree. In a standard deviation we should except a couple clubs to be worse off than others. Last year it was Liverpool. This year it’s Milan. Next year it’ll be a different club. Before you attribute ‘cause’ actually pay attention to the issues.
Pioli probably will be gone next season. No surprise. But we aren’t “bleeding out.” We’re in 3rd place in the league. We weren’t winning the league this year. You don’t change half your starters and expect to win the league. That’s just stupidity and if that’s what you expected then you need to start bro learn how to manage those expectations. Don’t expect insane outcomes and be pissed when they don’t pan out. Literal crazy talk.
Idk how else to say it but I think you’re kind of insane.
I agree with you.
All major clubs playing in multiple competitions have injury issues. And it’s true, it’s roll of dice who gets hit the most. This year it’s probably Milan, for sure in Serie A.
Also with too great expectations you’re right. It’s not too long ago where we would’ve been so happy to be third place in solid state with 9 points clear of 5th place.
That time we would’ve been 9 points of the CL places.
I’m not sure if Pioli needs to be fired in the summer, he’s in third place and will most likely finish third maybe even second.
He’s got half brand new squad after all and for that circumstance Milan is doing great.
Let’s just be blunt, the whole Krunic “problem” was solely caused by Pioli.