AC Milan were among the busiest clubs in all of Europe during the winter transfer window, completing five signings and with some exits secured too.
Deadline day in particular was hectic, with Joao Felix, Warren Bondo and Riccardo Sottil all arriving. Not only that, but Noah Okafor, Ismael Bennacer and Kevin Zeroli departed the club, making it one of the most active final days of the window in recent years.
The verdict from the papers
We start with the front pages of the newspapers in Italy this morning, who have crowned Milan as having done a ‘supermarket’ after their five-player spree.
La Gazzetta dello Sport: “Milan close a super mercato: five coups. Felix too. Joao has landed: what an attack with Gimenez, on the pitch tomorrow. Bondo and Sottil arrive (Bennacer to Marseille).”
Corriere dello Sport: “Milan Felix. The market closed at midnight, Ibra is the great protagonist. Joao Felix and Sottil signed. Okafor to Napoli. After Gimenez, the Portuguese, the winger and Bondo join Conceiçao. Bennacer to Marseille.”
Tuttosport: “Joao Felix with Sottil: Milan revolution! After the arrivals of Walker and Gimenez, here is the Chelsea ace and the winger from La Viola: Conceicao has a new team. And for June there is Krstovic.”
Then, MilanPress have relayed the ratings that a couple of the papers have given to Milan’s winter transfer window, which features five ins and five outs.
Corriere dello Sport (7.5): “Gimenez, Walker and Joao Felix, a January to remember for Milan, after a summer that was not as brilliant in its choices, on the contrary. The first two are sure starters, but the former Chelsea talent will also have space in his new… Portugueseized team. Sottil also hopes to have him, Bondo’s dynamism will replace Bennacer’s direction.”
Repubblica (9): “Walker is an international-level signing, you could see that in the derby. Gimenez is the centre forward that was missing, Joao Felix is the unfulfilled talent looking for redemption capable of changing the season. Sottil and Bondo are good last-minute additions.”
Tuttosport are drunk if they think Krstovic should go to Milan. That guy is crazy. More trigger happy than Rambo. He would do more harm than good.
Walker is a sort of leader level signing. Yes, he’s 34, but there is a sort of caliber for our backline that he brought. Yes, you could see how the entire team played better with just him alone. Shame we couldn’t secure win against Inter, but no matter… we have the rest of the season to fight for now. The other signings will hopefully all succeed, cross my fingers.
Walker was great – even just the way he shouts at everyone and organizes the backline is a godsend..
We finally were able to successfully pull the offsides trap with him there. Obviously an intelligent player and his ball control is 100x better than Royal.
👌
“Obviously an intelligent player and his ball control is 100x better than Royal.”
I’ve seen paperbags with better ball control than Royal. 😀 😀 😀
4-4-2
Now Conceicao can finaly play 4-4-2. Respect to Ibra for this mercato, if we compare it to other teams , we have definitely few levels better mercato. From Walker to Gimenez great. Also departure of Okafor, Morata, Calabria and Bennacer is great .
Now we can be more optimistic in second part of sesson
If only they had approached the summer with this lvl of competence prob would be having a better season. These are all to try salvage the mistakes they made then and it might be too late now
Good luck to all the new signings,we pray they all achieve success in their new adventure to take Milan back to the top where they should be, Forza Milan ❤️🖤
Finally the clown shoes are off!! Well done Zlatan great window chap!!
It’s just good mercato not Zuper Mercato until we can find world class DMF FFS
Calm down. It is hard to find top players available in the winter window. We did sign Bondo who is a young, hungry, athletic midfielder who can relieve Fofana from duty, decreasing Fofana’s exhaustion. Supposedly Bondo can play as a DM. This is his scout report:
“The scout report on Warren Bondo, the young defensive midfielder from Serie A’s Monza, is an exciting one for tactical enthusiasts. While only 20 years old, this French prodigy has made himself indispensable in the heart of the midfield with his peerless ability to keep possession, scoring an impressive 97th percentile in ball retention. His progressive carrying is equally noteworthy, ranking in the top 13%. However, Bondo’s performance is more nuanced than first glance might suggest. His style of play veers towards a defensive midfielder than an outright ball progressor.”
Yeah we hope he know what he is doing on the field.
If there is any concern about Joao Felix on here, don’t be worried.
“00:20 – Nonostante non ci sia ancora il comunicato ufficiale, il contratto di Joao Felix è stato depositato in Lega in quanto il giocatore risulta ufficialmente tesserato con il Milan.” – Milannews.
His contract was deposited with the League. They’ll announce it shortly I assume. But it’s publicly known and available to view online, that his contract was indeed deposited. He’s a Milan player definitely.
One thing I don’t understand from articles mentioning the lists for Serie A and for the Champions League is that Santi Gimenez is listed as a foreigner. He has an Italian passport. Does anybody know why he can’t be listed as Italian?
Santi was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and possesses Argentine citizenship by birth. He moved to Mexico as a young child with his Argentine father who is also a footballer and developed his career in Mexico. Santi did the same, and he got naturalized Mexican, and plays for the Mexican national team. So maybe that’s why he can’t be registered as Italian (maybe for FIFA and UEFA, the primary citizenship is set when you play for a foreign national team) but I’m not fully aware of how these registration rules work.
Santi is Italian by ancestry. His mother’s family is Italian. He was therefore granted also an Italian passport.
So, he is a triple citizen of Argentina, Mexico, and Italy.
transfermarkt says he’s only a Mexican National. I’m not sure what’s up with that, as what you’re saying does make sense. Maybe he hasn’t done the paperwork for Italian citizenship?
*Actually I retract that, I looked lower on the site. It does say he has Italian citizenship. Okay, that’s really weird…
He has Italian passport that means he won’t take a non-eu spot. He will be a foreign player in UEFA list and in league. The benefits of Italian homegrown will not be applied here
You don’t actually have to be Italian to count, you have to have trained in Italy for 3 years before the age of 21 (I might be wrong about the exact number of years and age, but it’s something like that). You can have a passport of New Zealand, Iran or Uruguay… all that matters is where you trained as a young player.
They’re not allowed to base it on passport due to EU law treating worker employment equally for each country, so it’s UEFA’s workaround for that to encourage national identity.
I truly hope Felix redeems himself, he was so hyped about after his time at Benfica but really couldn’t perform consistently plus he is also tends to be lethargic often…fingers crossed!
Here we go again with the “rate the mercato” even though none of the players bar walker has yet to play a single minute with the first team.
Personally, I feel like this transfer window is the equivalent of smashing the keyboard when the computer freezes and hoping it works, It DOES work sometimes but not always (trust me on this one).
We sold/loaned about 5 players and got as much. From an UCL point of view with Emerson’s injury it essentially means we’ve lost 2 players in a squad that had already tendencies to be ravaged by injuries and that has currently many overworked players. But perhaps it was already decided that we are not going very far anyways and that getting rid of deadwood is worth that risk.
The first team players who left are Calabria, Bennacer, Morata and Okafor. Knowing that the management also tried to sell Pavlović, Emerson and that Chukwueze might still leave since the transfer window doesn’t close on monday everywhere and since Pellegrino and Luka Romero also already left, That’s 3 players out of 5 barely acquired 6 monthes ago and in total 7 players acquired since summer 2023 that left or could have left. Put it any way you want, that tells A LOT about the recent transfer windows.
As for if the players are upgrade or not, well so far:
-Walker is the clear upgrade in his position. Even at this age, he is clearly faster, more solid and better offensively than Calabria and certainly way better in these parameters than Emerson.
-Giménez does come across as a player who scores a lot, but he has done so in the Eredivise, hardly a good indicator and he doesn’t have that many time to adapt to serie A.
-Félix, aside from that promising season with Benfica in 2018/19 failed to impress in any team and has never managed to score 10 goals in any league despite being in a position to do so. He can play in many positions but that’s also an indicator of him not being good in any of them. Conceição reportedly wanted him so his success or his failure will also be on the coach, since it was his call.
-I have never watched Bondo to be honest, his highlights look fine (if we can trust those) and his stats are horrendous. I guess the only advantage that come with him is that he is already a serie A player, so he will have no issue dealing with its pace (or lack thereoff).
– I have never heard of Sottil before, his highlights look fine but his G+A are quite low for a left winger and he is not really a young player with potential either, he’s already 25 years old but you never know. I guess the advantage is that he is an Italian from serie A, so no issues to replicate his Fiorentina form.
The questions also are, how much input did Conceição have in these players aside from Félix ? Since we swapped a midfielder for another but got 3 forwards, should we expect a shift to a 4-4-2 ?
Félix played well for the Portuguese national team and actually he was preferred by the coach to Rafael Leão in some games. Before we panic about him, let’s see how he progresses under Conceição. I’m hopeful.
Bondo does not have horrendous stats. He is a good, young, athletic DM. Here is his scout report:
“The scout report on Warren Bondo, the young defensive midfielder from Serie A’s Monza, is an exciting one for tactical enthusiasts. While only 20 years old, this French prodigy has made himself indispensable in the heart of the midfield with his peerless ability to keep possession, scoring an impressive 97th percentile in ball retention. His progressive carrying is equally noteworthy, ranking in the top 13%. However, Bondo’s performance is more nuanced than first glance might suggest. His style of play veers towards a defensive midfielder than an outright ball progressor.”
We definitely need someone with this profile. You may think his stats are horrendous because he isn’t a goal scorer (only scored 1 goal in Serie A). However we need a DM more than we need a playmaker, ball carrier or goal scorer. We already have Reijnders who’s been scoring a lot and we have other ball carriers. Our offense will be more dangerous with Gimenez up top and we also got Felix and Sottil this window; we’re actually top heavy, so a more defensive player is what was needed. I am content that we found a DM in the winter transfer window which is not easy as the very top players are typically members of the summer transfer window. Is Bondo a world class DM? No. But he’s a decent one and so far we had an overworked Fofana trying to play as DM and an out of shape Bennacer trying to play as DM. Bondo is actually an upgrade for the position.
I should also add: “stunning 94.5% in aerial duel wins and a healthy 72.48% in overall duels won—that ensures his team regularly regains control of the ball.”
Where his stats are bad are forward passing accuracy and goal contributions. But again, that’s not what we need, we have those who do that already. If he adds defensive solidity to the midfield, he’ll be helpful.
I don’t know what are your sources for Bondo stats, because in fbref.com, aside from pass completion, progressives carries and takes on, he is below the 40th percentile in everything and is even below the 10th percentile in some stats like pass attempted, progressives passes and interceptions and these are not related to goalscoring and ARE quite horrendous. Datamb compare tell a slightly different story but not a very good one either. I know that stats don’t tell the full story, and him being with Monza doesn’t necessarly help having good stats but I think it is worth mentioning that.
Now I’m not panicking about him or Félix or anyone in particular (we’re doomed anyways this season), but I think our transfer window isn’t as huge as some might think. We got many players, but we don’t know how good or bad they actually are.
Actually I thinking that Fofo might be a better playing CAM and Reijnders playing as CBS and DMS even that Tammy And Santiago will did it both in attack for much aggression to threatening for the opponent GKS.
Chukueze was much consistent and highlited player this seas IMO we must give him a brand new contract ASAP
Good analysis.
Very well said. Took the words right out of my mouth.
The problem is Milan have their backs against the wall… it’s basically “UCL qualification or bust” at this point. Yet to do that, it’s a wee bit of prioritizing the short term over the long term. It still seems they have no clear long-term vision on what type of team they want to build so they just went with the best available players they could get.
As for João, I agree wholeheartedly. His name carries a lot of weight, but he hasn’t lived up to the hype. The fact that the hasn’t scored or contributed much while playing for top clubs who generally score a lot isn’t a great sign. People say he plays wells for Portugal, but Portugal *is a great national team.* also it’s easier to score when you play against teams like Andorra and Luxembourg. Also, he’s not enough of a striker to be a striker, he’s not at enough of a 10 to be 10. It’s kind of like football purgatory.
But we’ll see. At the end of the day, I want them all to become superstars overnight and help this team win. But as of this point, those are my feelings.
Should have read your post first. Exactly my take as well. Apart from Walker there’s no clear upgrade. We hope, once more, that one of the other signings just happen to do well.
Lol “super mercato”
It’s gonna be fun to see if these new guys gonna end up mediocre like Emerson, Musah, RLC, Chuk, Abraham or just stay for 6 months like Moratta.
So far the new management bought flop players except Reijnders and Pulisic.
In the summer we’ll have a squad of 50 players.
Santiago is the son of footballer Christian Giménez, who also played with Cruz Azul. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Giménez moved to Mexico at the age of three with his father after he was transferred to Primera División side Veracruz.[2] His paternal grandfather is from Paraguay[46] and he is of Italian ancestry through his mother’s side.[47][48] He is a devout Christian and was baptized in January 2019.[49][50] Giménez is married to Mexican model Fernanda Serrano.
Just shows how desperate fans are as well as others over these transfers one of which ain’t even that it’s Chelsea property keeping it til the summer when he’ll return to London and go either to Paris Spain and as for the others time will tell but I ain’t holding out much hope.
In the meantime Man City a club who breaks ever financial rule in the book continue to spend on no less the the coaches old team on there star player of whom the coach must have rated and I wonder what the odds are he asked the club to get him ? instead of buying and holding on to fodder.
FFP FINANCIAL STABILITY OBAYING THE RULES 😂😧.
If Joao Felix performs reasonably well and he’s happy in Milan I’m sure he’ll refuse to return to Chelsea. He pushed for this transfer himself (remember he attended the Derby in person). Milan should have the upper hand in negotiations over the summer, I doubt Joao will have any interest in going to yet another team.
When are you guys going to learn that activity doesn’t mean better. It just means activity.
Before ppl esp Redbird fans (you know who you are) start yapping about how “great” this Mercato was, let’s remember the same was said of the last window and this is an attempt to correct that. Nevertheless huge credit goes to at least trying to change direction and for what in their minds is a correction. I give credit to where credit is due unlike y’all.
However I wouldn’t go as far as saying this was some Amazing window. Far from. We got lots of swaps and even a downgrade in quality. Just like 2 years ago, they can’t fool me with dangling lots of shiny toys which many of you all seem to fall victim to every time.
So let’s take the transfers one at a time:
Giminez for Morata. Enthusiasm because we have a new striker seems to dominate this transfer. Granted he’s a scorer, he’s also from a lesser league. b.anging in the goals in …the Eredivisie? kool thats fine and all but it doesn’t necessarily translate.Who knows how this will turn out. We may get another “Morata” for all we know and want to ship him out in 6-12 months. Or more positively, one can only HOPE he’s our next Sheva as someone in the comments had hoped for. That would be fantastic. However with the poor service our current set of strikers receive I’m not holding out too much hope (that is partially addressed with Felix, I’ll concede that much).
This to me is just like for like, neither here nor there and I wouldn’t say it’s an upgrade either.
Bondo for Bennacer. Two different profiles but quality-wise a clear drop off. Bennacer is press resistant, positionally superior and has overall great technical abilities. Bondo to me looks like Musah 2.0. He is young and is aggressive, was not super impressed with him when he played for Monza (granted though he did stand out for his aggressiveness…I will give him that). Someone said progressive passes are the best way to judge offense from a defensive mid (lol whatever the fck that means 😂) in relation to Frendrup’s bottom 3% stat. Well Bondo is worse at bottom 1%, wonder what he makes of that? LMAO. Anyways I hope he does well but let’s be real here people are just hyping this up because they wanted Benny to go. I’ll admit I think Benny’s best days are behind him and he’s too injury prone, so I understand the reason for selling him. I surely do. That doesn’t mean whoever comes in as a replacement is automatically better. I’d prefer a similar or better upgrade to the skillset Benny brought to the team. That’s now lost completely. We now have carriers and poor defensive mids.
Okafor out, presumably Felix in?. Let’s go with that for sake of argument. If we think Felix highest potential like Benfica days then yes this is great. But he’s been far from that player ever since and that’s many years removed. I’ll put him in the same boat as Okafor…both have high unfulfilled potential. I dont know what happened to Okafor…did fairly ok the first year but forgotten this year. A sub that doesn’t complain but can put in a shift when needed. Not sure what else we want from our subs. The big question about the Felix transfer is if he wants to be a starter or is content being on the bench and subbing for Puli/Leao. Or was he brought in to be a CAM or a third midfielder alongside Deers and Fofana. Who knows with this management’s squad construction abilities. But to me this is another like for like but hopefully he has less injuries to his name. It has potential but…
Walker in, Calabria out. This is probably the most clear cut of all the transfers in terms of being an upgrade. Experience, quality and ability. I’d wish though we’d kept Calabria as backup, to me it would have been ideal but alas.
Sottil? Seen him play for Fiorentina a few times but haven’t seen enough of him to get a truly firm grasp. Seems in the same mould as Felix so maybe we’re going to play a 4231 again? Or maybe he’s a sub for the wing positions…he can play across the forward line like Felix. Positionally I’ve seen him drift across the whole line in a single game. But this is one of those transfers where I’ll need to see where’s he’s employed before I could say it makes sense. Quality-wise he’s exactly at his level….at viola. This is not a big quality leap…its quantity. I’m sure ppl will be calling for his exit quickly enough.
So for me this window was one good upgrade and the rest are just hope they turn out well with a change in direction. But I’ll give management the kudos for recognizing they needed to change course and took measures to alter the way the season is going.