This week, the toxic atmosphere around AC Milan has returned, with many criticising the club on several levels. It is concerning.
Throughout this season, it seemed like Milan had dropped a bit of the toxicity surrounding the club. Protests quietened and there was a general feeling of optimism for the season and the future. However, that has gradually faded.
The loss to Sassuolo feels like the straw that broke the camel’s back and the toxicity has returned. After the game, the players avoided the fans and then questions were asked about the ambitions for the club again.
It is a repeat of the end of last season in many ways and the Rossoneri are almost desperate for the season to end, just so things can be put to rest for a little bit.
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Festa criticises the management
Il Sore 24 Ore journalist, Carlo Festa, spoke to MilanNews this afternoon and he was very critical of the management and their role in this season’s disappointments.
Yesterday, Fedele Confalonieri took a serious swipe at Cardinale’s management of AC Milan. He said that RedBird is like a bank and therefore has no interest in winning the Scudetto. Is this really true?
“It’s not a bank, but a private equity fund, which is a different thing. Fund management certainly presupposes budgetary rigor first. Excessively high costs and crazy spending aren’t expected, because the balance sheet must close in profit. This is the first element.
“The second element is that it’s not true that private equity funds never win, because there are some funds, like Atlético Madrid, that are in the Champions League semifinals and aiming to win. In some cases, they achieve significant results.
“Let me give another Italian example: Inter is also owned by a private equity fund and won the championship. There are funds and funds. Funds certainly aim for greater budgetary rigor, but it’s not true that they never win.
“They are entities that, with good management and good investments, can also aim to win major competitions. Cardinale has so far opted for a very defensive and prudent strategy from an economic standpoint with AC Milan.
“He probably could have planned for greater investments and wouldn’t have found himself starving last year. Out of the Champions League and at risk of being out of the top four this year. There are bottoms and bottoms, even bottoms aiming to win.”
So does the management make the difference?
“Certainly, without passing judgment on AC Milan’s management, a manager who knows football and has been in the game for many years brings greater benefits. Now I don’t want to praise Marotta, but he’s certainly achieved results precisely because he’s a high-level manager.
“Cardinale must be able to demonstrate he can achieve results with AC Milan. We’ll see if qualifying in the top four and having the Champions League revenue will send a signal about investment. If, on the other hand, the signal is always one of hardship, then it won’t go well for the fans.
“But we’ll see immediately; once the championship is over, we’ll see what AC Milan’s investments will be if they finish in the top four. I imagine that if they don’t finish in the top four, the policy will still be one of tightening the cost structure.
“Qualifying for the Champions League is crucial.”
What does the possibility of this year’s budget closing in the red, given the failure to qualify for last year’s Champions League, mean for the sporting world?
“Cardinale, certainly, not the current AC Milan management, has demonstrated in his past tenures at other clubs that he aims to buy players after selling some at a good price. He did it with AC Milan, he did it with Toulouse.
“It’s possible he wants to make some sales to then buy the players. But even there, it depends on which players he buys. If you buy promising young players who then don’t achieve results, that’s one thing.
“You need to find the right mix of promising young players and experienced players who bring results and even trophies.
“I understand the current state of AC Milan fans; there’s uncertainty about AC Milan’s future management, not so much from a financial standpoint – because AC Milan will always do very well financially – but from a sporting and results standpoint: there’s a lot of uncertainty and a question mark there.
“The key will be qualifying among the top four: then there will likely be a more expansive financial policy. If they don’t qualify for the Champions League, there will be real problems.”
Cardinale repaid his debt to Elliott, but the CEO, Giorgio Furlani, remained the same as Elliott. Do you think this is normal practice?
“My impression is that Furlani will remain as AC Milan’s CEO next year because Cardinale isn’t as interested in results as he is in the financial management of the team. Furlani has been really good at this.
“He cares about sporting results compared to Cardinale, and so I don’t think the managers will change. There’s this permanence of managers who were once Elliott’s in AC Milan’s management structure, and the fact that he’s never replaced anyone is a bit of a question mark, because when a new shareholder arrives, some managers are replaced.
“In this case, he hasn’t replaced anyone. Furlani is certainly doing his job as a manager very well, from a cost perspective. If it were a company in any other sector, not sports, he would be rewarded, in fact. The problem is that it’s not another sector.
“In football and in sports, if you don’t win, you don’t get results. Sporting performance is as important as financial performance.
“And in AC Milan’s case, it’s only financial performance. And, as I repeat, it’s not a bank: it’s a shareholder in a private equity fund. It’s not true that private equity funds don’t win in football. There are bottoms and bottoms.”
It’s not true that Cardinale hasn’t changed any managers.
He got rid of Maldini and Massara a year after a scudetto and a summer following a Champions League semifinal.
They look like a couple of rent boys.
“There are bottoms and bottoms.” I think that just about sums it up…
Bottom line is, as long as Gerry is in charge we need to keep our sporting expectations low. Last 4 years prove it.
It’s king Gerry of entertainment, why are you not entertained? It’s what you wanted. Revolution every summer with old toys out, new shiny ones in. 40 millions on Nkunku, 35 on Jashari. We’re cooking🔥
RedBird has consistently since takeover brought the necessary funds but the sporting guys have failed to build anything of admiration.
The ownership has held up its end of the bargain by making Milan the highest spending team in Italy in terms of player recruitment; the fact that the team is underperforming in the sporting project is a direct indictment of the Sporting Directors, Technical Directors, Scouts and Coaching staff who have failed to turn the highest spend in the league into the highest standing in the table.
Tare, Moncada, Allegri are directly to blame, maybe Zlatan too but to a lesser extent.
Everyday we keep faulting the transfer department of signing €20-30 million range players, but even though it is an issue, it cannot be the reason for playing awfully.
Teams like Como, Bologna and Torino have implemented cohesive, entertaining systems and style of play with squads whose entire squad valuation is way lower than Milan’s. If these teams can play fluid football with players valued at €5m–€10m, then the “lack of quality” in a €30m player holds little ground.
The issue isn’t necessarily the price tag of the player, but the blueprint and football identity the sporting side have adopted. Milan has spent nearly €250 million over two seasons, yet the sporting side now led by Tare and Allegri has failed to establish a modern tactical identity.
Entertainment in football comes from automated patterns of play, not just individual brilliance and that’s entirely on the coach, training, drills and tactics.
When a €40m midfielder like Jashari looks stagnant and confused, it is rarely due to a lack of talent, it is due to a rigid system that prioritizes defensive shape over proactive ball circulation.
If Vincenzo Italiano and Thiago Motta can make their teams (previously) play beautiful and entertaining football with players below the €20m range then it is a testament that playing good football is purely passed from coaching identity to the players, as entertaining football is not solely tied to individual players but collectively how a team play with each other.
#AllegriOut!
What about furlani, is he doing a good job? Not by any stretch of the imagination. The guy is seriously meddling with other people’s affairs, he decided to bring some of the players which nobody wanted but him and which were not asked (and approved for that matter) by Allegri and looked and maybe even approached by Tare. Why did we sell Tonali and Reijnders? OK, Tonali had that “problem” but why didn’t we control him better? Why didn’t we ask for more money for each of them? They both left way below the price. How much did we earn last summer? We got rid of so many players, it is only natural to spend some more money than we usually do/did once in a decade or more (2017. was clearly an/the exception that proves the rule) to fill the squad that so evidently lacked depth and strength. 250 million euros (and in two seasons, mind you) is actually nothing when you have to bring half of the starting lineup and provide the coach with depth which ALL OF THEM failed to do. Why don’t you mention the salary cap imposed? We stick to that policy even though we live in 2026! That way we present ourselves as a joke (although laughing matter is a better description) compared to the clubs considered a top-tier in the modern era, we are wealthy on paper but we’re financially stable? Who cares about that in the end, really? Not to mention that we don’t even spend it wisely and we ha’d won only one SC in these four years! SC is the least important trophies of them all and even that was pretty hard to get. It’s not the same premise for Inter and us, we needed to bring more players, OK, we didn’t exactly started from scratch but even so, there was much work needed and we haven’t got it done, much less did we do that in a proper way. And it’s not like Napoli and juventus haven’t spend a significant amount of money either because they did. We are lacking (in) so many things and for so many years now, we lack a backbone, we lack leading players, we lack identity, we lack a blueprint, a clear style of play, a vision and a plan, an automatism (automated patterns), discipline and cohesion and so on and so forth.
*we had won, we didn’t exactly START (from scratch)
**squad WHICH (?) lacked
*** (the least important) trophy (of them all)
“Why did we sell Tonali and Reijnders? OK, Tonali had that “problem” but why didn’t we control him better? Why didn’t we ask for more money for each of them? They both left way below the price…”
Like, I seriously do not get it, we had a management that let Donnarumma, Kessie and Hakan worth €150m leave for absolutely free and we zero from their transfers and you want that management to be retained, but the management that sold Reijnders and Tonali for €130m should be bashed, I really don’t understand. Tonali was sold to buy Reijnders, Pulisic and Chucky. Would you be mad with building a team like this?
Imagine if we had bought 2 or 3 good players with the Reijnders money, that would have been a masterstroke to cover up for 3 players leaving for free.
They didn’t utilise the Reijnders money wisely after being replaced with Jashari and Ricci, or maybe it’s too early to pass my judgement.
Furlani only insisted on the signings of Pulisic, Morata and RLC and while Pulisic has been a hit, Morata was decent especially considering he only spend half a season with us while RLC has been bad. So Furlani scoring 2 out of 3 cannot be a bad enough reason for his name to be slandered everyday in here.
The sporting guys aka Sporting Director, Technical Director, Scout, and Coaching team have let the project down.
Tare
Moncada
Allegri
Furlani out first of all.
Milan wasted money on Ricci and Jashari. Almost everyone in this forum expected the midfield to be built around these two. Both have turned out to be complete flops. Completely lacking quality. Add Mr. goalless, can’t score, Gimenez and there you have it. Fulkrug has to be the absolute worst January transfer in Milan’s history. Keep them far away from the starting 11.
Nobody in their right mind expected that, at least not this season.
Clowndinale’s “winning is boring” statement, said to us everything is important to know.
It’s funny , some of us here in the comments , in the recent past, claims Clowndinale never said this 😆😆. We are the ignorant and bad people and we don’t believe enough in his goodwill…yep…😆😆
Wow one short run of poor results and everyone suddenly thinks management should be overhauled. Fair weather fans.
I have 40 years of being Milan fan…
What are yo talking about ?
“one short run of poor results”
3 seasons is “one short run”? I’ve been a fans sinced ’88 but the 3 last seasons still don’t feel like “one short run” but a fng decade of misery.