With AC Milan currently in a very rough patch of form, the crosshairs have fallen on the management for their transfer business.
Calciomercato.com write that Milan in recent weeks have dropped well short of the standards set by the first half of the season. From 42 points at the halfway point, they’ve dropped to 25 in the first 16 games of the second half of 2025-26, with just 16 goals scored and an attack in total crisis.
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Among the things that are obvious is the lack of help from new signings. Over the course of this season, 11 new players (worth approximately €170m in investments, offset by similar figures in terms of transfer revenue) have arrived in the last two transfer windows. Very few have thrived.
The not-so-magnificent 11
Pietro Terracciano arrived on a free transfer from Fiorentina as Mike Maignan’s deputy in place of Marco Sportiello. He made two league appearances (Bologna and Udinese) and kept a clean sheet in both cases, so he gets a pass.
Koni De Winter was bought from Genoa for €20m and he has made 24 Serie A appearances (scoring one goal against Roma), alternating good performances with serious blunders in some matches that has once again cost him a starting spot.
Zachary Athekame arrived from Young Boys for €10m after repeated attempts to sign the much more expensive Strasbourg player Guela Doué were met with resistance from the Alsatian club.
He has made 24 league appearances, scored a decisive goal in the home draw against Pisa, and provided two assists. He was more involved, especially in the second half of the season, demonstrating interesting qualities but also his inexperience.
Pervis Estupinan’s €17m purchase was unfortunately followed by lacklustre performances. His first season will undoubtedly be remembered for his winning goal in the second leg of the derby against Inter, but also for a series of defensive blunders and losing his starting spot to Davide Bartesaghi.
David Odogu had made just three Bundesliga appearances when he arrived for €10m. This inexperience meant that Allegri didn’t trust him whenever the defence was in crisis, proving an experienced player would have been much more useful. There is talk of a summer loan move.
Samuele Ricci cost €23m to sign from Torino was tipped to make the big step up after several transfer windows where it seemed his time would never come. Ultimately, he was more of a reserve midfielder than a regular starter, with 29 appearances, one goal and three assists.
Adrien Rabiot has been one of the best signings Milan have made in recent years. His six goals and five assists in 26 appearances show that, as does his commanding presence in the middle of the park. His presence was felt even when he was gone, and he cost just €7m
Not much needs to be said about Luka Modric. The champion made a romantic move to his boyhood club on a free transfer and Allegri placed him right in the middle of the 3-5-2 system that he built. The Croatian has showed his charisma and tactical intelligence, as well as his technical ability.
Then we come to Ardon Jashari. The second-most expensive signing of the season is currently a huge question mark. He was quickly sidelined by the presence of Modric and Ricci, but was hampered by a serious injury that kept him out for three months.
He never found match fitness, and when he did play (just 12 games and 553 minutes) he never made a big impression. Quite the opposite. He’s also been hit by the fact that he was negotiated over for a long time and was acquired for €37m plus bonuses.
Christopher Nkunku is ‘a complete flop’. At €38m plus bonuses he is the symbol of the transfer failings, given Allegri wanted a centre-forward and ended up with a very unreliable second striker. His five goals in 25 games mean that the exit door is open for the Frenchman after just one year.
Finally, Niclas Füllkrug. Allegri’s request for an additional No.9 to tackle the season was granted six months late. It’s a shame that, with zero budget and very little room for manoeuvre, the only option was to bring him a player like the German, lacking in fitness and playing time.
He scored just one goal against Lecce, made numerous substitute appearances and made just three starts. He’ll return to West Ham without too many regrets, while the striker money magically became available for Jean-Philippe Mateta, who did not arrive.
Jashari, Ricci, DeWinter, Athekame aren’t bad signings. Rabiot obviously the best addition
only mistakes were Nkunku and Estupinan
Jashari Ricci…?
I havent seen them play for Milan.
Specially in terms of quality effects on games.
Jashari had the freakishly bad injury. But he has shown glimpses. Same with Ricci. He was the Torino captain afterall. To me, similar to Tonali, (who had a rather avg first season). Both Jashari and Ricci will need to step up in their year 2. Even more so next season where we will have a significant amount of games. There is no way we can play the same 11 every game all season next year
They’re not bad signings on paper at all, you could even say the same about Nkunku and Estupinan, but clearly the left arm wasn’t talking to the right last summer.
We made two signings last summer that are starters, one was free one was (can’t remember and cant be bothered looking) circa 12m and both were no-brainers.
Outside of that, we signed a lot of players that clearly don’t fit the managers system (regardless of how good their scouting dossier looked).
So the result is, we spent a lot of money on a new bench, and virtually no money tweaking a starting 11 that finished 8th the year before.
It’s not good.
Exactly. 30M for first 11 and 140M for bench warmers. I don’t remember anyone being so bad at transfers as Tare and Furlani. I hope they are both fired but that is wishful thinking.
“I don’t remember anyone being so bad at transfers as Tare and Furlani.”
Moncada & Zlatan (if he did anything) are also serious contenders.
Well that was also Furlani, he made the decisions, I doubt the scout made the decision. Or the advisor of the owner. The probably have a small share of the blame but in my opinion it’s always on the person that makes the decision and has that responsibility.
But by far the worse part for me was signing Modric early, and he said he wants to play a bit behind, and then Milan signs Ricci and Jashari for a combined 65M instead of buying a striker that can score goals. 2 of the most useless signings ever made, considering Milan also spent 30M on Fofana for that position a year ago. Tare just stacked players in this position when Allegri PUBLICLY said he wants a real striker and an experienced defender.
Giga, you would be better than Tare and/or Furlani, I would, even anyone from this comments section would. Nobody is stupid enough to buy 3 players for 1 position, well except Tare and Furlani.
Jashari and de winter good
Athekame and ricci acceptable
Stupidnan and nkunku disaster
If Gabbia didn’t get injured De winter may not have gotten any chance to play or redeem himself,
If Modric didn’t get injured, we’d never been having this discussion on Jashari right now.
If Alexis didn’t have some bad games and injury, we’d never know what Atekamen could do.
Point is we can deem Nkunkun and Estupinia as bad signings cus they had their time, but for the others, especially Jashari we cannot conclude since he has had time to blend with this team coupled with the fact that the coach is playing an anti football pattern.
Alegri didn’t integrate most players well and now we consider them as flops.
And also its not just the “ins”
We sold Reijnders – the most creative and dynamic midfielder we’ve had in years. You know what our midfield is sorely lacking this season? Creative and dynamism. He’s now been linked with Juve.
We knew we’d be playing a front two and we let Tammy and Jovic go. Both are better link-men than any of our current “strikers”.
And finally we let Calabria leave on a free. The best right back ever? No, but he’d have been a far better option as cover on the right, and cheaper, and would die for the club.
Dave that was supposed to be a reply to my own post above sorry 😁
They forgot to mentioned the biggest flop of them all, the reason why many, if not all of these players are considered flops, Max Allegri.
Fullkrog Nkunku Estubian helt bortkastade
Incredible how much money was spent badly. For example even Ricci was overpaid, even though you can’t expect Torino to sell their captain for nothing, but how did Milan manage to pay 15M€ more for a guy from Belgian league that is about as average as it gets. If they offered 50M to Lazio they could have probably gotten Rovella as Lazio was selling to help with their financial issues. No, lets buy the unknown guy for 40M€. He played exactly as I expect, he needs 2 years to adapt to this league and shouldn’t have cost over 20M, probably 15M€. Odogu, the guy with 0 senior games 10M€, how much did we pay for Thiaw, that had 2 FULL SEASONS of senior football in German 2nd and 1st division? About the same. Nkunku 40M? HAHAHAHAHA. Shows how much worse the people in charge of transfers are now compared to those before. Everyone has fails but when all your transfers are fails and the only good ones are a lucky Rabiot one, and Modric who joined because of Berlusconi and the team Milan had in late 80s and early 90s, you know you’re a transfer genius that shouldn’t be in football at all.
However, if Jashari is 40M, Rovella is 120M as he is at least 3 times better and more valuable to have on the field compared to Jashari.,
We need a talented and competent sportive director !!!! Tare is not
Reindeers, Pulisic, Modric, and Rabiot are the only really good signings Milan has made in recent years.
There have been a few so-so signings.
But the numbers of bad signings are staggering.
If you look at the players brought in over the last four years, each season there was only 1-2 good players at most. Everyone else was either useless or turned around and resold… Every single one of the last four years.
But yea, the same people will do a competent job this summer just because we clinch CL?