AC Milan director Paolo Maldini made some very interesting comments after last night’s defeat against Inter about past decisions and the future of the squad.
Among the most intriguing things he was asked about is the choices that were made during the last summer transfer window in which the management chose to double down on young players like Charles De Ketelaere, Aster Vranckx and Tommaso Pobega rather than go for more established names.
There is an argument that inexperience and a lack of contribution from those signings is what has contributed to a poor season domestically for Milan as they might not finish in the top four, as well as the gulf in quality on display over the last four games against Inter.
Maldini spoke to Sky after the 1-0 loss last night and he explained some of the decisions that were made, including the one to invest in the Belgian playmakers, spending over €30m.
“De Ketelaere is an example of players who need to grow, that’s normal. It would have been much easier and much cheaper for us to go to a player like Dybala at the beginning of the season,” he said (via MilanNews).
“But would he have been the right player for our project? Would he have been appropriate and shared by our owners? No. We have an idea and want to build a young and talented team.
“It is risky to sign young players. Sandro [Tonali] struggled in his first season; the same happened with Charles this year. But this is our idea of football, our idea of investment.
“It’s a shared view with the owners. If I wanted a stronger line-up I would have made different choices in the market. We have a project which we are developing together. It takes time, knowing that we are Milan. Who better than me knows about our great history?”
When you wasted time trying to get Ziyech who is the same age as Dybala, where was the idea of the project in that case? How consistent are your arguments? If we wanted Ziyech we could have gone for Dybala. Maybe a different excuse would have washed, but not the project thingy…
Maldini should come out clean and say: We made a big mistake.
Maldini knows football better then you …
Agree
In that case I guess that means Chelsea should have given Lampard 3 years since he was a legend at Chelsea that means he knows football more than everyone else and the fans.
Being a good player doesn’t make you a good coach or good director and this have been proven over and over again!
2. I hate when I hear fans saying Maldini loves Milan more than the rest of us..I refuse to agree to that, Maldini do not love Milan more than I do or more than any other fans who go through alot supporting the team. We fans put in so much energy, money & time because we love the team and no one can claim to love Milan more than the other.
Maldini didn’t play for Milan for free, he was being paid to play. Yeah he spent all his career at Milan but that Milan was the best team in the world along with Real Madrid and Maldini wouldn’t have spent his entire career in this present Milan.
Comparing the circumstances, many fans spend alot of money that they don’t even have supporting the team, especially for those of us who are not Italians & spend so much travelling..that’s love so y all should stop making it seem like Maldini played for Milan for free or he loves the club or know football better than all of us
“But would he have been the right player for our project? Would he have been appropriate and shared by our owners? No. We have an idea and want to build a young and talented team.”
Hmm 🤔 interesting.
How do 32 year old always injured Florenzi and 32 year Messias fit in that idea of building a young and talented team?
Also, Origi is only a year younger than Dybala.
You are saying one thing but you did totally something opposite.
You are contradicting yourself there Paolo.
Also, didn’t you pay like 3+ mil to sign Florenzi and also gave him a 3 mil per season 3 year contract.
You also paid around 5 mil to sign Messias plus almost 2 mil per season 2 year contract.
4 mil salary for Origi till 2026.
This doesn’t look good Paolo
I think you can do a better job for sure
I have to say it’s pathetic to see so many fans supporting Maldini but asking Pioli to be sacked when Maldini is responsible for the failure of the team.
It’s only Milan fans in the world that worry about the finances & salaries of their players &club while other fans only cares about result on the pitch & then we go hating the players who leaves because we refused to pay them what they deserved.
I think many of you miss the most important point, how can Paolo Maldini say that he built a team that is incapable of playing in 2 competitions when you clearly know that as champions, you had to play supercoppa, champions league, coppa italia & league yet you weakened the team by allowing our best players go for free & brought in players that wouldn’t get a starting place at Monza to play for Milan and throughout the season, you kept lying that this team was stronger & can go all the way in all competitions & made everyone who said the team was weak look like a fool. Pioli did the impossible winning the league with this team & reaching the semi final & his only sin is his loyalty to the management because no coach can go anywhere with these kind of dead players & a coach like conte or mourinho would have dragged you out for this nonsense instead of covering for your ass & taking the blame. Yes the owners are responsible for this shit too but no other teams in serieA spent alot because there were so many quality players for free or loan this season that Maldini could have brought in even in January when the team was dying, this fucker refused to bring in anyone… Dybala doesn’t fit the project but you have Messiahs, Giroud at 37, Kjaer & so on.
The same Maldini that promised the fans that he wouldn’t sign unless the new owners assures him of investment but that turned out to be a lie too because he just used the fans to get a more lucrative contract for himself. I love Maldini the footballer but Maldini the director is a failure and very incompetent should be fired ASAP!!!
Pay whatever they asked for? You mean, we should’ve paid, Donnarumma €12m what he was asking for? Or Kessie? Who was asking over, €9m to sign a new contract? Why are you showing, as if only we, let our valuable players leave for free? Players running down their contracts is nothing new..
Yes we could have. Kessie was a player who deserved it & what happens to agreeing to their terms to get them to renew & then selling them off? Chelsea still managed to squeeze 1m from Milan for Giroud at 35 whose contract expired & many clubs directors do this so they don’t lose their best players for free.
It happened with Donnarumma & fans hated him, then Hakan, Ragmanioli & then Kessie & we were almost going to witness the same thing again with Leao and we keep blaming these players when it’s obvious our director doesn’t know what he’s doing. How on earth players like Krunic that was 5th choice, Tonali 3rd, Diaz 2nd & so on are now the starting players with no good replacement for them even as bad as they are… the director of champions of Italy publicly admiting that he & the owners knew that the team is not capable for playing 2 competitions when we had 4 different competitions to play….. I have supported Maldini for so long but he out did himself this time & he needs to stop blaming others just like other Milan fans and take responsibility for this failure!
Rafael Leao will sign a new five year contract, check the latest news!
Regarding Chelsea: they lost their two centre backs, on free transfers to Barcelona and Real Madrid BTW.. No way Kessie deserved, €9m.. We were willing, to give him a payrise.. Donnarumma? He was already overpaid, and wanted to earn over €10m plus his agent commission and don’t forget, we were also paying his brother!
If we just bow down, to their requests, then our subs like Ballo Toure would make €6m sitting on the bench.. Just see: Eden Hazard, is Real Madrid’s highest earner yet he doesn’t even kick the ball.. We don’t have a, huge finance to overpay our players..
Yeah I know Leao is signing and we got lucky because Psg didn’t want him and Chelsea is currently worse than Milan not because Maldini did anything special.
This is the problem I have with so many Milan fans, we keep complaining and calculating the players salaries and we keep making excuses for the club management over finances and these are the same fans who didnt want Saudi owners…what is our ( fans) business with the salaries of players? If the new owners didn’t have the money, why buy the club?
I have never heard Man United fans complaining of their players high salaries because all they care about and all that the fans benefits is the result & joy on the pitch & i bet during Berlusconi none of us cared about the salaries of the players but everytime now we are complaining about money as if that has anything to do with us!!! We qualified for the champions league and won the league but did we see what they did with the money?? Letting your best players go for free because of a few thousand extra is stupid & y all should stop making excuses for the management!
They act as if Maldini has the final say! Even if Maldini agrees to pay Leao £10m per season, there are still guys behind the scenes who have to give the greenn light. What I’ve observed is that most people who like to use every article to hate on Maldini like to ignore facts staring them in the face. Imagine we didn’t sign CdK and he went somewhere else and blossomed the same set of people will call out Maldini for missing out on CdK. Because CdK didn’t blossom in his first season they call Maldini a bad director for spending on him… I wonder what they’d say if he blossoms next season. They make it sound like there’s only one result you can get for every action without considering that there are variable factors that could make what seems like a good move on paper turn out to be a disastrous move. I very much understand why Origi was chosen over Belotti but just because Origi didn’t work out they feel like they’re justified in calling Maldini a bad director. Here’s my two cents: there’s no better man for the job than a person who spent his entire career playing for the club. You think you love the club more than he does? I mean we’ve tried Leonardo, FassoBelli and the likes amd it brought us tremendous success eh.
@milan fan, I think it’s time we call a spade a spade. Pioli has done well getting to this stage of the CL with these amateur players given to him by Maldini and the owners of the club. The truth is, Maldini is still getting to know he’s responsibilities as a sporting director all in the name of building a young and formidable team. Never the less no portion of blame should be directed at Pioli. Maldini and the board should chest it in full because I still can’t comprehend the reason for the madness they’ve displayed so far by not signing quality players as Serie A Champion even if they didn’t have the intention of getting to the semi final or even winning the CL but at least to retain the Serie A title and also win the Super Coppa Italia they lost to Inter.
Stan I’m happy you are my team mate at least i have another brother who is intelligent, you said it all
Maldini was a great player thus, one would expect him to sign quality players, ironically he signings are really bad. Its high time Milan higher ups get a proper sporting director, or call Boban.
@jonny exactly. Maldini was the captain of one the great side in Milan history & one would expect him to have ambition for the club especially after he promised he wouldn’t sign a new contract unless the owners assured him of investment for big signings but I have no idea what happened to him because Maldini the football players is completely different now..this is a liar & someone who used the love the fans have for him to get himself more power at the club & a lucrative contract & once we miss out of the champions league, we will eventually end up like Leicester City.
I hope he gets fired & a proper sporting director replaces him because he’s very bad as sporting director.
Your “idea” sucks. You can’t have a team of preteens and expect it to magically become great one day
I’m with you Maldini is our problem his mismanagement and lack of experience is costing us lot of damage
Sometimes your idea works, and sometimes it doesn’t. No biggies. You win some, loose some. How long have you guys following football in general, really? We’ll see how the management reacts after this down season, whether they’ll learn from this or not. Then, we can judge.
And please do not forget that Maldini won the award of best director last season. Considering how ‘young’ he is on this field, it surely is a good thing. Sure he’s not perfect, but knowing him as player, you know he’d do anything to improve, moreover for his only love, Milan.
I agree. Maldini has done more than enough for our club to deserve time and respect. Plus i think CDK will come good this year.
CDK is never going to be good player, just average. Maldini was great player, but that does not mean he has talent to judge new talent. So many mistakes from him. Right now, there is not any good player in Milan. Maybe Leao, but just little better than others.
well said man
Well said man…
Charles De Ketelaere, Aster Vranckx and Tommaso …….who ??? Stupid response.
“We could of signed dybala but the project requires we signs inexperienced nobodies.”- Maldini
Trash of an idea, we need results.
What crap – We relied on a 37 yo impact striker for the whole season. Dybala would have been a great signing..
Maldini has to take the L on CDK for this season. Maybe next season he explodes but right now this ain’t it. But I will back our management. Its waaaayyyyy better than before what we had before for the last 10 years. How quickly do people forget.
Do note that CdK was not his main target for the big splash. As much as I badmouthing CdK, this Milan is still lots and lots better compared to the Milan who spent 20 something mil at Kalinic
What idea? Signing highest transfer fee this season 35m euro just for adaptation and no contribution 0 goal ? Give origoat 4m euro salary nett for 4 years with just 2 goal ,did he notice origoat injury record while at liverpool? Give junior & florenzi 3 years contract while they are just injury prone ? Florenzi get 3m euro nett, double than leao get before renew. Rely on striker 37 years and 42 years as your frontline striker?
CDK is never going to be good player, just average. Maldini was great player, but that does not mean he has talent to judge new talent. So many mistakes from him. Right now, there is not any good player in Milan. Maybe Leao, but just little better than others.