AC Milan are heading towards a revolution of sorts in the summer transfer window with as many as 10 players at risk of leaving, a report claims.
According to what La Gazzetta dello Sport (via MilanNews) reported this morning, the management are preparing to trim down the squad by offloading players who are no longer deemed a central part of the project.
There are three players on loan who are heading for a departure: Sergino Dest who arrived from Barcelona, Aster Vranckx from Wolfsburg (who has a small chance of staying) and Tiemouè Bakayoko from Chelsea.
Then there are those who have not met expectations this season, such as Divock Origi who has scored only twice this season despite arriving as the man to try and give Olivier Giroud some support.
Yacine Adli has not had much playing time and thus an exit cannot be ruled out for him, while Charles De Ketelaere has also struggled but he will not be going anywhere because the club intend to nurture the investment made last summer.
Milan must also understand what Zlatan Ibrahimovic will decide whether to retire, stay at Milanello or try yet another adventure. On the other hand both Antonio Mirante and Ciprian Tatarusanu will say goodbye at the end of the season.
Finally, there are three players who could leave if the right offer comes in: Fode Ballo-Tourè, Junior Messias and Ante Rebic. The Croatian in particular seems to be in his final campaign.
We should sell them all besides Charles. Charles will become valuable member of team.
Based on that rabbit in headlights expression he has every game?
“Rabbit in headlights” is that an Italian expression? It’s Hilarious 😂
It’s less about who leaves v getting the squad down to a manageable size.
The reason the back up players haven’t performed this year are:
a) some have had injuries e.g. Origi and Rebic;
b) some have only arrived e.g. Origi and CDK;
c) they haven’t played regularly; and
d) when they have played it’s often been as part one of 5 substitutes or in a side where 7-8 players who have been rotated.
5 subs thing typifies the problem. 5 subs is stupid. It’s disruptive. But managers make 5 subs because they can. The only way to stop them is to change the rules back. They need to change rules back because it’s ruining the game and managers would exercise restraint even if it’s damaging the team’s performance.
Maldini & Co gave Pioli a squad of 30 and Pioli used a squad of 30 – badly.
Pioli’s rotations have been terrible. Changing 7-8 players for one game is simply not going to work. If you changed 7-8 barmen in one night the bar would struggle.
These are supposed to be elite athletes playing at the highest level imaginable where a millisecond is the difference between winning and losing.
So the key is to get the squad down to a manageable size.
With the players we have we actually could have a really tight squad of 16-17:
GK: Sportiello is a good signing as cover for Maignan. I don’t know what the point of Vásquez is other than to block youth players.
FB: Calabria can play on both flanks so he should be cover at RB and LB like Panucci and, erm, a 40 year old Costacurta used to. Kalulu could cover between CB and RB.
CB: Thiaw seems to have the ability to really step up so Tomori and Kjær.
CM: Krunic can be the new Ambrosini covering across all midfield positions with Bennacer, Tonali and Pobega, and then we need to sign a top, top, top midfielder as our main priority.
Attack: Saelemaekers, Leão, Díaz, Giroud + ???
Here is the big question:
Can CDK step up? If he can he potentially solves AM, RW, LW and CF at once,. He could play in nearly every game starting and off the bench.
Can Origi step up? Again he can play RW, LW or CF.
Or do we give up and sign another? Can we afford to if we need to sign a top, top, and I mean top, CM?
We have to choose. We can’t keep both. We need to back one or bring ONE other in.
And then we’ve got Maldini and Colombo.
Big choices. But we have to focus. No more than 1 or 2 signings and the priority has to be CM.
Anyone else needs to go. For themselves and for Milan. We can’t have 30 players. We need 23 and a core 16-17. And assuming there’s no rules change – no more than 3 subs per game.
This is elite sport. You can’t go around changing so much.
Krunic will NEVER be Ambrosini.
Bless you bro… I have been saying this all along its Pioli’s poor management of the squad that’s a major problem not that we have extremely terrible players 7-8 changes to a squad and for players you barely feature is already a failure plan. If this squad is properly managed, we just need 3 top signings.
You’re delusional, most of these players have no hart and place in Milan, CDK is a joke he didn’t showed NOTHING in all the time he was given a chance. Krunic are you f….ing kidding me. And one word for Sale,Origi,Diaz and Pobega-mediocre. We need bad everything MF, FW and DF for rotation.
Origi is showing signs of life lately.. if he can keep it up he might not be a bad back up in the end.. Tho pricey 4M salary. Can play st, lw and rw… that was the idea behind his signing anyway.
Think a lot depends who will coach Milan next season
Who in the world would pay for Toure??? Unless they really needed a player on the roster with a first name Ballo….
Krunic Ambrosini you are joking my friend everytime milan play with him from the start milan play with 10 men in the field see what happened with m****a inter Adli dove per pioli non gioca ? if he plays next year with another team you see who he is we cry for him as others did sempre milan forever for life