AC Milan are still feeling the effects of the transfer flops that were carried out while Leonardo was in charge of recruitment, a report claims.
La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) write about how Charles De Ketelaere, Divock Origi and Yacine Adli have become the face of what many consider to be a bad 2022 summer window with money wasted, but their costs do not seem as bad compared to what came before.
The paper recall how Leonardo was in charge when the likes of Gonzalo Higuain, Mattia Caldara, Lucas Paqueta and Krzysztof Piatek were brought to the club, resulting in over €130m being burned through.
The Brazilian was called in the summer of 2018, when Elliott Management had just taken possession of the club after Yonghong Li’s disastrous ownership. Paolo Maldini was appointed director of strategic development, and it seemed a good team to move forward with given their experience.
Higuain and Caldara arrived from Juve, presented on a terrace in Piazza Duomo. The Higuain operation was potentially gigantic: a loan of €18m with an option to buy for €36m, plus a salary of €7.5m. Then, €35m were invested to sign Caldara. To that sum must added the €14m spent for Diego Laxalt.
Six months later, Gattuso – at the time Milan coach – found himself fighting for a spot in the Champions League with none of the three playing a part. Caldara was always injured, Laxalt a reserve and Higuain was at Chelsea.
After a good start (4 goals in the first 6 matches across Serie A and the Europa League), the feeling between Pipita and the Devil soon faded away and the call from west London allowed Milan to limit the damage.
In January 2019, after having tried in vain to bring Ibra back to the Rossoneri, Leonardo decided to turn to Piatek of Genoa. He spent €35m on the Pole, who scored seven goals in his first month but his season ended in decline.
His time at Milan ended at the beginning of 2020, after five goals in 20 appearances, when he went to Hertha Berlin and Milan made a capital gain given the €27m received, albeit a minimal one.
Piatek was not the only failure of that 2019. In the same January window, Lucas Paquetà landed in Milano from Flamengo, costing €38.4m and becoming the third-most expensive signing ever in the club’s history as well as Elliott’s biggest expense.
It went very badly for him too as he never settled and said goodbye in September 2020, joining Lyon for €20m after 44 appearances and four goals in two seasons.
Some context is needed.
Higuain was a bad deal.
Laxalt as well.
Caldara was a swap for Bonucci that they had to make to get rid of Bunucci. Caldara than ruptured his Achilles and tore his ACL. The kid had the worst luck ever.
Unlike most I don’t consider Piatek a flop at Milan. He spent only 12 months as a Milan player and scored total of 16 goals in 41 games. Had a great start under Gattuso and then Giampaolo showed up and ruined everything.
Paqueta also had a great start under Gattuso and was along with Piatek and Bakayoko one of the main players that led that Milan come back that end 1 point short of UCL. Then Giampaolo showed up and he didn’t like Paqueta, covid happened and Paqueta got sold.
Paqueta and Piatek career at Milan were sabotaged by the hiring of Giampaolo after a great start for both under Gattuso
“Unlike most I don’t consider Piatek a flop at Milan. He spent only 12 months as a Milan player and scored total of 16 goals in 41 games. Had a great start under Gattuso and then Giampaolo showed up and ruined everything.
Paqueta also had a great start under Gattuso and was along with Piatek and Bakayoko one of the main players that led that Milan come back that end 1 point short of UCL. Then Giampaolo showed up and he didn’t like Paqueta, covid happened and Paqueta got sold.”
I agree on both players. Paqueta wasn’t used properly and it was the lack of service that ruined PIatek’s Milan career. And Zlatan taking his spot was the finishing touch there.
130 mil damage from Leonardo and Maldini’s transfer flops.
!30 mil damage from Maldini and Massara letting our best players leave for free instead of selling them.
Not a single important player sold in 5 years.
But the narrative is Milan owners only think about profit and not about spending to win.
Elliot was investing a lot the first 2 years and then after covid, just like every club in Europe not named Chelsea, they cut down on investments because of revenue loss because stadiums were closed.
Wow! The genius comments.. So? Donnarumma, Calhanoglu, Kessie and Romagnoli, are worth €30m in your book? Bravo @Poli! Now you are inventing, your own valuations, to scapegoat Maldini? See: who is obsessed? Even though Maldini, is no more our director.. And the article, doesn’t even mention, Maldini..
What you seem to forget is that the elliot ownership once said that milan wasnt a selling club and they wanted to create a succesffull team that could fight for glory so your agument of selling isnt much valid from my viewpoint.
Kessie also bamboozed us as he had made it clear he would renew and when it started to become clear he wouldnt renew he wouldnt accept getting sold in january and thereby made it clear he played on two horses. Good riddance he is gone but considering our current owner that snake would fit well with them.
Donnarumma also held us for fools and the same with calhanoglu. Neither had any reasonable offers made for them by the way as the biggest offer that has arrived for the italian was 20 mil from my recollection and that one came from leonardo while in psg.
He didn’t held US for fools, he held the inexperienced, incompetence sporting director for a fool.
It wasn’t 1 player but 4.
So all of them held Maldini for a fool but he was good at his job?
How can you guys continue to say Maldini did a good job IF you need to constantly use excuses to defend his failures.
You can either have results or excuses. You can’t have both.
You brrought up not selling players and i told you the ownership elliot has previously said they were not a selling club so thats as simple as that as its a clear indication that they wouldnt sell their starters but of course you can ignore it but that doesnt make you right either.
you do realize with the demands donnarumma had it was impossible to renew due to the wage cap which was then imposed by elliot management and not by maldini.
Kessie ran from his promises of renewing you cant do anything then as he was looking for a big pay day for him and his agent which again is limited by the wage cap and general lack of funds made available to maldini.
Calhanoglu signed for inter for 500k more and signed for our direct rival if you dont feel that they held us for fools then i dont know what,
Maldini brought results no question there so why would you say such bs, Do yoiu even have any respect for maldini as it dosent seem so to me.
They are not selling club means they are not selling players for profit. But that doesn’t mean allowing players that don’t wanna extend their contracts to leave for free without the club getting money in return to replace them with equal or better players. There is a big difference there. That’s bad business. Selling players that don’t wanna extend their contracts was Maldini job.
And I have 100% respect for Maldini the player. Maldini the ex director, not much respect.
His wrong decisions over the years cost Milan dearly
Well you can argue that those players already gave value back by their presence at that time as the club was rebuilding and rebranding itself but overall i would sell players if they hasnt renewed two years prior to expiring contracts or risk getting benched but our team didnt/doessnt have the options really as the team lacks quality depth due to the limited financials made available and besides of that the market for the players wasnt in favour of selling them.
Well at least you respect maldini the player but i cant see how you can bash him so much as a director as he actually did bring results by creating the team that won us our recent scudetto.
The players weren’t the ones negotiating with the management. The agents were. SO if Maldini & Co weren’t able to read between the lines or negotiate better with the agents, then it is still on them because they hold those positions.
You can evaluate each case differently but the overall theme is that we let a lot of players go for free when there was a lot of money to be made on their departures.
But wages and sigtn on fees would also affect how we otherwise would be able to act in the market as money would have to be moved from one place to another so considering the wage cap and the stinginess of the owner i have to disagree and you cant sell players if they refuse to be sold so its not as simple as you paint it,
Get your facts right. None of these cases were Maldini choices. None. It was Leonardo.
This is just for you to realise how easily you can have flops (typically it’s more flops than successes), how expensive the flops typically are (many millions losses, not just a year salary of free players). Basically this is just to prove how amazing work Maldini did overall.
LOL, Milan’s summer is always full of drama, now they will go on and on about how bad the previous directors were, how bad the club used to be
It wouldn’t be a summer without all the Milan drama, eh?
Giampaolo killing Milan. Who appointed this guy is suck.
The players didn’t “flop”.
The club didn’t have a proper manager. After we fired Allegri (who went onto have success with our direct rivals) we replaced him by a string of people some of whom weren’t even qualified to coach and some of whom had never coached a top team.
Pioli was the first semi-experienced manager we hired and voilà we suddenly played as a top team.
The coach is the single most important person at the club.
Man Utd went from 1st in Ferguson’s last season to 7th the immediately following season.
Chelsea went from 1st to 10th after Mourinho lost the changing room and back to 1st under Conte until he lost the dressing room.
Juve went from 7th to 1st when Conte took over.
In each case the exact same from players went from flops to winners overnight.
This is why it’s so ridiculous rating players like they’re in a computer game.
If a player has been scouted and signed by a top club then they’re in the top 0.000000000000000000000000000000001% of players on the planet.
Sure some won’t have the right discipline or mental strength or might get injured or struggle to settle but they can’t ALL struggle.
That is a failure of the coach.
Most of the current squad including Theo and Leao could easily have struggled in previous Milan sides.
And the same could happen now Maldini has gone.
“If a player has been scouted and signed by a top club then they’re in the top 0.000000000000000000000000000000001% of players on the planet.”
I can think of at least one person who could challenge you on that number and ask you how you got it. 😉
In addition to that person, I myself think there’s way too many zeroes in between.
Poetic licence…
completely irrelevant comment… Clowning just to clown.
Learned from a fellow commentator.
According to TransferMarkt,
Since Leonardo left (end of the 18/19 season) AC Milan have the highest net spend in the transfer market in all of Serie A. This is driven by the fact that AC Milan rank 11th in funds received through player sales in that time period.
From 19/20 to 22/23… [Net Spend] (Expenditure) – (Income)
1. AC Milan [€176.18M] (€303.88M) – (€127.69M)
2. Juventus [€135.25M] (€624.06M) – (€488.81M)
3. Parma [€131.92M] (€175.37M) – (€43.46M)
4. Napoli [€127.69M] (€383.12M) – (€255.43M)
5. Roma [€86.05M] (€326.15M) – (€240.10M)
6. Monza [€76.88M] (€77.48M) – (€0.605M)
7. Lazio [€50.90M] (€145.25M) – (€94.35M)
8. Inter Milan [€40.58M] (€403.37M) – (€362.79M)
It’s clear that some adjustment in transfer strategy is needed if Milan want to successfully maintain the so called “virtuous cycle”.
Until Milan have their own stadium to bring in additional revenue, and Serie A get a new and improved media rights package, this is the only way forward.