The fall-out rages on after AC Milan’s 2-0 defeat to Napoli last night, and it has caused some sections of the media to question the summer choices.
MilanNews begin a piece by talking about how the number of important absences definitely weighed on the outcome of the game at San Siro, with the likes of Theo Hernandez, Matteo Gabbia, Tijjani Reijnders and Christian Pulisic not in the side.
Milan also played well for most of the game and created chances they didn’t take. However, the reasons for yesterday’s defeat – which puts them 11 points behind Napoli – certainly do not stop at the unavailable list.
Instead, Napoli showed what Milan perhaps should have done. They bolstered their squad by vigorously covering the shortcomings, perhaps making a couple of extra efforts (economic and otherwise, spending €150m in the summer) to improve and strengthen.
Aurelio De Laurentiis, after a failed Scudetto defence, knew that ambition was needed. RedBird’s Milan – after two seasons of disappointments, especially in comparison with Inter – did not. Rather, they continued to try and get the maximum result with the minimum effort.
Napoli hired Conte for €6.5m net per season so they could boast a winning coach to instantly raise the level, and he could have ended up at Milan. Fonseca meanwhile is on €2.5m net per year and is regarded as a good coach, but never a winner at the highest levels.
Napoli desperately a defender after Kim’s sale so they went and got Alessandro Buongiorno for €40m, while Milan – who had the same defensive need – chose to sign Strahinja Pavlovic from the Austrian Bundesliga, for less than half.
The Partenopei also listened to their coach and well all-out to get Romelu Lukaku. The Rossoneri, after having abandoned the Joshua Zirkzee battle because of a principle against commissions, chose Alvaro Morata for €13m and Tammy Abraham on loan.
It’s not just a question of money, the report adds. It is not a given that if you spend more you spend better, but Napoli’s business saw them get a top-level coach, a quality centre-back, two new starting midfielders and the ideal striker for the coach’s game.
At Milan, on the other hand, the modus operandi seems to be to make purchases spending little, but then realising that in a few months you have to spend that money again and the rest because the quality of what you bought has already gone to waste.
The Diavolo, before the end of October, are already needing a miracle to get back into the Scudetto fight. ‘You only reap what you sow,’ the report ends.
Those who believed the fairytales of private equity predators must be surprised right now that a cost-effective, business-oriented sporting policy led by bankers, a video scout and a jester can’t bring results in the highly competitive European competitions.
I got hammered on here pre season for saying I thought there was a good chance we wouldn’t finish top 4 – the supposed bare minimum. We’re not winning the league – forget that, and whilst of course top 4 is still on, we are definitely in that “will they, won’t they” pack scrambling for 4th place.
I don’t really know what to say at this point, it’s all just a bit meh. If the line is that we are still supposed to take positives from last night, that’s very worrying – there weren’t many…and we lost to a rival.
We hear about positive signs from Terracciano last night – well ok but… Postive signs from RLC last night – well ok but… positive signs from Emerson last night – well ok but but but…when do these positive signs turn into players being an asset to the team? How many times have Musah and Okafor shown positive signs and then they go and choke big time like last night?
We have a handful of top class players and none of them are performing well. Then we have a larger group of “maybe” players and not one of them can find a shred of consistency.
It’s all on the manager!
I’m not committing to this comment, I’m really just positing an idea, but I wonder if missing out on top 4 would be the best thing that can happen. It’s the only way RedBird will see that a project based on mediocrity won’t line your pockets with gold.
You can’t hire idiots to run the football side of things and assume they’ll do ok. You can’t buy every player from the bargain bin and pray they will work out because most of them won’t. You are not flipping a house, you are running a football club!
Same thing I always say…I’m not anti-RedBird, it’s just a pot of money and its only goal is to become a bigger pot of money – just the same as any other pot of money in elite football. But it is currently being very poorly managed and it isn’t going to get bigger unless it changes it’s approach.
Definitely mistakes were made in recruiting players, our over reliance on foreign players needs to be reviewed, but if you look at the match holistically our physical condition is much improved, and our players are beginning to blossom, but the problem yesterday was tactics, and some choices the coach made during the game, he completely misread events and the set up and how we played was suspect, if you look at the first goal, which was Mike Maingan’s fault , trying to play down the middle, he almost made the same mistake some minutes before the goal, even the second goal was as a result of both the midfield and players on the right not closing him down.
The main mistake the Coach did was not putting Leao in immediately the second half started, the honestly he should have instead replaced Chukwueze instead of Okafor, because Okafor is more powerful, more direct, that is what we needed on both wings, we needed players with power that would assault the 18 box, not get the ball and drive to the face of of goal and shoot, even putting Pulisic was a mistake, instead he should have removed one of the Midfielders and put Camarda, removing Emerson Royal was also a mistake, because removing him reduced the effectiveness on the right, for all of Chukwueze’s performance yesterday, the way he plays is extremely predictable, and honestly lacks the strength and stamina for that role, it is now right for the club to sit down and chat with Fonseca and understand his work, and to reflect on it, what is evident is the midfield has to have 3 midfielders, instead of 2, that way we are more solid ..
Trust me tge reason leao and Theo are walking around the pitch with faces like a smacked a£ss is because they to were sold a dream just like us. They wanted and needed a coach with pedigree and what’d they get. They wanted some real quality players come in and what they get. Its tantamount to not being allowed on the adult table at Christmas but you can be the oldest and one in charge of the kiddie table and look little johnny, you’ve also got a few more smaller cousins at your table this year. Maybe it’ll be fun. I know your friends are having their food at the grown ups table and even having champagne but give it some more time and maybe you will to. Enjoy
That’s ridiculous what you’re writing because Gerry loverboys here will tell you, these players are getting paid to play the game and should just shut up and play. No place for showing human emotions and discomfort under such wages.
They really should shut up and play.. did maldini ever whine?
He was on the verge of leaving the team at some point. He also acknowledged that it was easy for him to remain loyal to Milan as the team was highly competitive for most of his time.
What about a situation where you win a Scudetto, go to UCL semifinals, then your player-favorite/fan-favorite/football legend sporting director with impressive results is fired because he has too much ambition for the team, then the transfer policy can’t elevate a solid team, then the new coach is some random Ligue 1 coach used to managed kids and no names. I guess I would be eager to live as soon as possible if I was a top player, considering that I can live comfortably anywhere.
See that’s the problem. They think they’re top players. They aren’t. So they should shut up and play.
You won’t win a scudeto whining and taking cooling breaks.
And like lord pioli wasn’t a random no name coach.. double standards at work.
I disagree. Both Théo and Leao have been cornerstones for years. They both start for paramount national teams. Leao is a former Serie A MVP. They’re very talented and gifted with incredible athletic and physical skills. They have top valuations and as we could see yesterday with Buongiorno/Pavlovic, Kvaratskhelia/Okafor or Morata/Lukaku, it’s that valuation means something.
The psychological aspect of the sport has completely vanished under this management but what else can we expect from Wall Street American psychos…
See. Cornerstone for years. Performing without whining.
Now they start to whine and performance lvls drop..
When I’m right I’m right. They should shut the fùck up and play.
These are fair points, I would add several more.
Pushing out Kalulu and Simic both well integrated squad members with proven quality.
Imagine the time we spent negotiating for Fofana and got no discount, we could be without him also.
That wasted time could have been used to find another midfielder.
Why are RLC and Musah still here when they don’t fit the system and are not good enough?
Why can we not purchase a real goal scorer?
Morata is a good deputy to have but we need a lot more.
Season by season this squad becomes more of a mess under this ownership/management
I said before the season started we would be in danger of missing top 4, of course the red birds on here thought we would win the league.
It’s time to wake up people!
As I watched hopelessly last night I couldn’t help but be transfixed by the scrolling advertisement about Milan – NY Yankees clothing range.
This encapsulates everything wrong with these owners.
They have no understanding of the game or fans
Why on earth would any Milan fan buy that sh1t?
Or why any Yankees fan?
What bizarre link is there between the 2? NONE?
Is it any wonder there is no logic to our player recruitment?
Get these Idiots OUT NOW
It’s funny you mentioned the Yankees as I was watching one of the World Series games the other day and remembered Gerry boasting about his link up with Steinbrenner in the Yankees early 2000. Yet this is like their first World Series I can recall in a while (likely to lose it as they’re down 3-1). And they’ve only won once since 2000. They’ve been abysmal since Gerry came lol 😂. So it’s not like the change was that impactful in a sporting sense. Maybe the books were good 🤷♂️
Maybe we can try to hire De Laurentiis as a sporting director lol
You gotta buy what you need and not what is cheap on the market.. musah was a total bust.
Heads need to roll, the decisions being made are very poor.
I don’t expect them to buy 60M players but ffa put some thought into what you’re scouting..
I always think back on Armero situation..they chased him many years. Finally got him, benched him and said he was not the profile the club needed..
We’re still doing that.. fúck…
We’ve spent a bit less than 80M€ this summer: 13M€ on Morata, 15M€ on Emerson, 18M€ on Pavlovic, 25M€ on Fofana, 5M€ on Jimenez and 3,5M€ on Vos while also getting Abraham for free. For those who had enough playing time this season, we can divide them in 2 categories:
1.average with a couple of good games (Fofana and Morata).
2.mediocre (Emerson, Abraham and Pavlovic).
We’ve let Maldini go for FREE, sold Simic for 3M€, loaned Adli and essentially sold Kalulu to Juventus and we’re now in a situation we were MUST get an italian player if we want to meet UEFA requirments. We renewed to Jovic only to kick him out of UEFA list and not use him. All of this while we essentially just needed a DM, a ST and a Theo deputy (perhaps a CB as well).
Forget sacking, Moncada (and perhaps Furlani) should be jailed for this. As for Zlatan, since he does nothing, he should just be sacked.
Why didn’t we go for Hojbjerg (sold for 14M€) or Ricci or even Amrabat for DM ?
Why didn’t we try for Calafiori or Buongiorno or even Hummels for free as CB ? (Calafiori especially can play as a LB)
Why didn’t we go for Guirassy or David as ST (instead of Abraham) ?
Why did we give up on Kalulu and Adli ?
Why did let Maldini go for free while neither Loftus-Cheek or Reijnders can play as AM ?
What was the purpose of buying Jimenez ?
And we kept Thiaw so we definitely didn’t need Pavlovic – other than the fact he’s left footed they are the same profile in both what they do well and need to work on.
In terms of money, we basically swapped Kalulu for Emerson – ridiculous. Even if we still let Kalulu go, Bartesaghi could easily come in more freeing up Terracciano for the right or even Jimenez (who again, is a fairly similar profile to Emerson).
No Emerson, no Pavlovic. I just freed up 35m to go and get Ricci, who we desperately need.
Getting Ricci means we wouldn’t have needed to spend 25M€ on Fofana. We could have kept Adli, sold Bennacer (I love the guy but he is an injury in the making) sold Loftus-Cheek, got Hojbjerg….
Our midfield could have looker like this:
Ricci, Reijnders, Hojbjerg, Adli, Maldini,…
I said all summer what we needed was a striker and DM.
Most people here kept crying about a CB and RB.
I agree with you completely. If anything we needed backup LB! As we had 5 Rb’s!
At the end of the day, if we don’t have money to spend, then spend what money we have on 1 or 2 good players not a bunch of trash
RB: Kalulu/Calabria/ Florenzi
CB’S: Kalulu/Thiaw/Gabbia/Tomori/Simic
LB: Theo/Spinazzola (FREE)
CM: Fofana/Adli
Mezzala: TJ/Benny/RLC/Musah
RW: Pulisic/Chucky
LW: Leao Okafor
Striker: Morata/Sesko
That would have been minimal disruption and improve a couple of positions.
Obviously I’d like Calafiori as CB/LB but it wasn’t a priority.
I’d also love Ricci in midfield but we needed to focus. Why not buy Hojbjerg for 14m?
Samardzic would have been a great replacement for Musah or RLC if we sold one. RLC probably could have been sold for profit, not now
Yes, almost everyone here wrote how Bungiorno is overpriced and how Pavlovic is a great deal. I told you the first day, that guy is useless, waste of 20M€. And I am proven right. Same as Reijnders will never be a top player, but an average midfielder that is invisible in 40% of games per season. Bad management, they should all leave, with Fonseca. Pack their bags, get in one card and get the F out of Milan. Ibrahimovic you as well, get lost.
*car
now you see how hard M&M choose players based on the budget.. even now with with more loosened and bigger budget can’t even pick the right players for the team.. the scouts really need to leave his post to someone else.. the owner is so blind that he cannot see these and not sack people in charge even after bigger mistakes they made than M&M.
The reality is Conte would’ve stood his ground. Management do not want that. If Conte came in, Zlatan would’ve drawn up strategy directly with Conte whom he respects. Furlani doesn’t want that. He wants to feel in charge unfortunately.
The idea of Furlani at Milan gives me Ed Woodward at Man Utd vibes