AC Milan’s decision to sign Emerson Royal to try and fix the right-back spot has been criticised by The Athletic writer James Horncastle, who likened it to a charitable donation to Spurs.
The pursuit of Royal was talked about for weeks and was confirmed last month. It was also announced that he will be under contract with the Rossoneri until June 30, 2028 and there is an option for another year after that.
The 25-year-old right-back was pursued by Milan for much of the summer transfer window but the two clubs struggled to agree on the transfer fee. He arrived to a mixed reaction from fans who question if he is an upgrade, while we profiled him in-depth in a feature.
Horncastle has published a round-up piece for The Athletic talking about the main topics in Serie A over the weekend and he took aim at Milan after their poor start to the season.
“Milan keep conceding the same goal too, down Emerson Royal’s side. His €15million (£12.6m; 16.6m) signing from Tottenham Hotspur looks like the biggest donation in the history of Fondazione Milan as the club charitably tries to make his wish to become a footballer come true,” he said.
The journalist went on to talk about Paulo Fonseca’s baptism of fire, at least from a results perspective, and how he needs to avoid slipping down the same slope that Rudi Garcia did at Napoli.
“Technical issues aside, the optics aren’t good for Fonseca. Another former Roma and Lille coach was rapidly discredited by real or perceived displays of contempt in Serie A this time last year,” he added.
“Rudi Garcia lasted until November at Napoli after Victor Osimhen, Matteo Politano and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia all publicly disdained his in-game decision-making.
“Winless in his first three games, two of which came against revelations Parma and Torino, it’s too early to judge Fonseca. But already he has to avoid the Garcia caricatures.
“The senior players in the dressing room must bring Hernandez and Leao into line. The issue is they are the senior players.”
Dude was marked to fail from the start and he still wanted to come. Why wouldn’t he? He even got a raise, salary went from 1.3M net to 2.5M.
I’ve a lot of name calling for management for this one. A lot
Unfortunately I agree as well. I just don’t understand the parameters for picking this guy.
I don’t know if they were hoping he would rediscover his Betis form or what…. But so far he is a disaster.
If we’re lucky, at least Calabria elevates his game to regain the starting spot …
You watched him play for Betis?
Xavi or Segio Conseicao?
Allegri and Sarri will just ruin the team, they both are out of steam… but De Zerbi was such a loss…
Tudor.
We’re not hiring big pay managers, forget about all of those
Chat GPT4? It’s only £20 a month.
Concseicao, would be my pick, he is going to be or is an elite manager, is tactically sound, the right amount of arrogance and players love him!,
I was gutted when we did not get him, he would scare Inzaghi and Motta!!
Our mercato and the coach selection, is more about what we did NOT do!, rather than WHAT we did do
Too early to say. He will not be a world-beater, but might be an ok player nonetheless. Like Calabria in other words.
Nothing like Calabria as you seem to think that 260 appearances for Milan and 205 in Serie A count for nothing.
Football. The only thing in the world where experience doesn’t count for anything.
The biggest donation in the history of Fondazione Milan
LOL too good
Yes good one 🤣🤣. Management is really wise, they make royal gift, at first i think this royal gift is for fans, but the truth is this royal gift is for Tottenham.
How long is florenzi out for? I see hes included in the champs league list.. ancelloti is going to wake up one morning and think managing real is rubbish and its time to put milan back on the right path.
I think he will be out until March/April so he is basically only there to make up for the quota numbers, If you think Ancelotti is coming back for us then I’m sorry to burst your bubble because I recall him saying that he would end his career when he leaves Real Madrid.
James Horncastle is a wonderful wordsmith and is never wrong. Especially today.
I cannot understand what Moncada, Ibra, Fonseco etc saw/see in this guy. All you had to do was watch a single game he played at Spurs and yoy could see how bad he is, do what did they see……or are this management really that idiotic ?? And they gave him a pay rise !!! It baffles belief the incompetence…..
Think of it this way. If royal was any good conte could/would lobby for him since they supposedly worked well together at spurs and napoli needed a width at rb/rm. Instead mazzocchi plays there now. Who is mazzocchi? Idk
“The senior players in the dressing room must bring Hernandez and Leao into line. The issue is they are the senior players.”
Yes and the captain is Calabria, so there is no chance – I’m glad Morata is here, but he has just arrived and has his own personal stuff going on.
Leao and Theo act like they own the club and the least they need to do is apologise, take their medicine and then prove that they want it – and if they don’t, fine – put in a transfer request then you can go and play in Serie c until the offers start rolling in – they could have put this to bed almost immediately, but didn’t – couple of fools..
I wonder when ppl will finally understand how t doesn’t matter who you bring in at rb or even lb. If those positions are not given adequate back up from teammates on the field, they will consistently be beaten.
If anyone has actually played competitive, organized 11v11, league style games, you know wing backs are not supposed to be left 1v1. When we win the league, Calabria and Theo had help from tonali, kessie, benny, sale and messias. These players were all hard workers that would double down. We got rid of them all except for Benny, who’s injury prone. So now, our wing backs get exposed time and time again. Gone are the days of Cafu, maldini, lahm ect. Wingbacks need help and at Milan, that simply doesn’t happen now.
Kessie, tonali and sale were the balancers on the team. They allowed Theo and leao to do what they do, while limiting theos defensive flaws while simultaneously ensuring Calabria was not left alone. We don’t have that now.
Also get gabbia in the damn starting line up. He is our best cb.
“The senior players in the dressing room must bring Hernandez and Leao into line. The issue is they are the senior players.”
What senior players? Kjaer & Giroud left and Florenzi is out for 9 months. That’s just a kindergarten out there now.
Yes. This is a great achievement to the wise management. We have average young squad in serie a, if not the youngest.
There are no leaders in the team. Mike is the closest thing to a captain, but it’s hard to yell at your team mates from the goal posts …
What makes me wonder is, how stingy the management can be, but they be throwing money for E. Royal
I have a British friend who is a lifelong Tottenham fan. I asked her what she thought of Emerson. She said, “he is very bad; useless, no positional awareness, can’t defend, and is very slow; please do buy him from us; we’ll thank you forever!”
This is like Tottenham buying Origi from us for 15 Million. I can’t start to comprehend why Milan thought we should waste 15 M on this guy (and remain for another season with no RB upgrade).
Back when Fonseca was rumored to be the choice but he hadn’t signed yet, he said he wanted Emerson as his RB. This shows how mediocre Fonseca is, and how his judgment is deficient.
Fonseca and Emerson, together with Origi, these are some of the worst signings in the history of AC Milan.
So the truth is milan management give royal gift to tothenham fans, not us milan fans, damn
Worst thing was we were the only bidders! We outbid ourselves 😆
Someone like Emerson is the sort of guy you play hardball for. 10mn take it or leave it. Sure spurs might have left it but then they’re stuck with their version of Ballo Toure for another season.
I simply did not understand targeting such an awful player, but also then negotiating by continuously improving our bid to “meet in the middle” middle of what? The guy is worth zero, Spurs are lucky to get anything for him never-mind €15mn
In the era of loan-with-option transfers all over the place (eg see Pobega, Adli, CDK) I cannot believe we didn’t do the same with Emerson. We could have sent him back in a year rather than being trapped with him on a long contract. SMH
We have learned NOTHING from the Ballo-Tourette & Origi incidents… How sad is that?
Its strange, usually a club buys a player that looks good and then sometimes they don’t step up to the level required. Ok we all make mistakes
Buying a player who is already trash is incomprehensible.
Please please please Milan, i really need 18m. I’ll do any job you ask
Cardinale just want money..he just hope for business margin.. American businessman only think about it..look how american businessman ruin united, loserpool and the biggest stupidity is chelsea..! Any football club will be a joke when american taking over
Can’t get money if the club you own is not getting results on the field. They can pump the brand and raise value through that but idk if billionaires will pay top dollar for a club that has a weak team and will need a lot of investment to get back to being competitive
i dont know what to say i saw a video on tiktok a spurs fan made a video of emerson royal with the title being “the player ac milan got” and then show alot of his bad things and yes he is horrible and im still confused why ac milan and fonseca was in lover with emerson he aint a world class rb i would rather played a broken leg florenzi than him and did even fonseca watch spurs or emerson games to see how bad he is fonsec is a bad trainer emerson is a bad player and we got a bad managment our squad should get 3rd place as our midfield and defense is kinda awful
But hey, if our main scout approves, he must be GOAT. Right?
now we’ve right side Ballo Toure, w/ longer contract & bigger salary, congrat furlani
They bought Emerson just because he has no lungs from time to time believing he also has Serginhos quality.At betis he used to run a lot.
I hope Royal will read this article and this words will help him to rise his abilities because really after just one and half game what he played, now he doesn’t seem like reinforcement, Calabria has bad games behind him, but in my eyes he is still better and more experienced and know how to play against big teams
Comparing Royal to Calabria is like comparing Kevin Constant to Cafu.