Samuele Ricci was announced as Milan’s first signing of the summer yesterday and today, he started his adventure at Milanello. However, what should the Rossoneri fans expect from the midfielder?
After striking a deal with Torino at €23m plus bonuses, Milan only needed Ricci to sign the contract and that was done yesterday. Given how long the Rossoneri have followed the player, some fans have high hopes for his impact next season.
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At the age of 23, it’s also clear that Ricci has room for growth and Milan are hoping that Max Allegri will be key in that sense. Indeed, as the data confirms, we’re not talking about a player that’s fully ready and developed.
Ricci compared with Tonali
Comparing Ricci’s data with Sandro Tonali, as done by our writer Rohit Rajeev on X, it’s clear that the latter beats the former Torino man in all areas. However, the two are almost identical when it comes to duels, while progressive passes and progressive dribbles are also fairly similar.
RICCI vs TONALI
⚔️ Defensive Contributions
Tackles + Interceptions: Tonali (2.96) clearly leads Ricci (1.02), showing more direct involvement in ball-winning.
Recoveries: Still in Tonali’s favor (5.91 vs 4.69), but Ricci’s number is solid — suggesting he positions himself well… pic.twitter.com/dL4bxhMyvI
— Rohit Rajeev (@keralista) July 4, 2025
Of course, the difference between the two was definitely to be expected as Tonali costs €70m, maybe more, and Milan got Ricci for the aforementioned €23m. That being said, Tonali was at a similar point in his career when he joined the Rossoneri, so the hope is that Ricci can have a similar journey.
Oh, so for once the youtube highlights did tell the truth: he’s only good at tackling and passing the ball sideways.
No doubt we are missing a midfielder who can help out in defence, but I would assume it takes more than that to play for Milan.
Let’s hope he can develop into something different than Lucas Biglia.
I’m not on X so I can’t see if this is covered in the comments but what season is being compared here?
Each of their last seasons before joining Milan? Last season? Their careers to date?
This is all very vague and sensationalist.
I agree with especially with sensationalism and lack of context with stats, which irks me as a stats person. They did that quite frequently with Reijnders.
However, a quick check on Fbref comparator feature and it looks like they compared 23 yr old Tonali with 23 year old Ricci (actually 22 yr old at the time but nonetheless) – it was the closest match to the stats. In any case no matter how I sliced it, In all years, including the year before at Brescia, Tonali comes out tops by similar sized gaps in those metrics mentioned. And that’s crazy to me.
Yes, everyone we bring in must be compared to Tonali, because he was just the most amazing Milan player ever when he was here, right? Tonali was bang average for us while he was here.
The real question is who has the bigger gambling problem.
Average? You should never again give your opinion about players you clearly have no knowledge of football. Probably fifa player and thinks fifa stats apply to real life!
With that said.. he will be sold next summer!!
I hope it doesn’t take him a year to show his worth like Tonali…
This obsession with Tonali isn’t healthy. Can we move on ffs.
Comparing both is pointless as they are two different type of players.
– Tonali an all out action type of midfielder, aka Gattuso, but much more complete.
– Ricci is more of a Pirlo-playmaker type, but better defensively.
Really would prefer to have both of them playing for milan though along side Reinjders. Imagine if we’d only signed Reijnders and Pulisic (40 mil) while keeping tonali (sold for 59 mil according to transfermakt) in 2023, today we would have a midfield three of Reijnders-Ricci-Tonali. Instead, we wasted 75 mil on RLC, Okafor, Chukwuedze and Musah
Ricci is not better defensively than Pirlo. Pirlo is underrated in defence because his passing/offensive part of his game is so good. Pirlo is a very good slide tackler for instance, very clean on the ball and positionally astute.
Ricci, amongst midfielders in Europe’s top 5 leagues, is in the bottom 5 for tackling,.meaning 95 percent of mids are better than him at tackling. He’s also bottom 30 percentile in interceptions in Europe among mids. Bottom 7 in blocks 🤷♂️