The summer mercato has drawn to a close, and AC Milan are being criticised for not fixing one of the big issues: the centre of the defence.
As MilanNews recalls, one of Milan’s priorities for the window was to sign two centre-backs. One was to be an experienced leader and the other a high-level replacement for a potential sale, as happened with Malick Thiaw to Newcastle United.
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This objective was recently confirmed by sporting director Igli Tare, before the Lecce match, 72 hours prior to the deadline: “We need to do our best in the last 72 hours to bring in an experienced player.”
Trust in a teenager
The response to this statement from the director was the acquisition of David Odogu, a German centre-back born in 2006 who has made only three professional appearances in his career.
Obviously, there’s no intention here to undermine the young player, who deserves the full support and backing of the team and the fans for an adventure that will undoubtedly be crucial in his still young career.
However, a different kind of signing for the defence was certainly expected, especially given Tare himself had announced it publicly, just as he announced the need for a new centre-forward that didn’t end up coming.
Experience hasn’t arrived, and the quality hasn’t improved, so Tomori, Gabbia and Pavlovic remain the starters. Koni De Winter has joined but is yet to start a game, so he remains fourth choice at present.
The club tried to do what they said, firstly with Manuel Akanji – who wanted to play in the Champions League and earn a little more money – and then with Joe Gomez, who instead fell through when Liverpool failed to sign Marc Guehi.
Milan had the seventh-best defence in the league with 43 goals conceded, and the year before that they even had the 11th-best with 49, despite finishing second. The ‘Achilles heel’ has therefore been ignored again, so how must Allegri – a defence-first manager – really feel?
hopefully in the winter transfer window
So Tare knew exactly what to get but didn’t….ok
Yes, we should have gotten akanji already but UCL bottleneck happened
It wasn’t UCL bottleneck only. Milan asked him to reduce his wages to come to Milan. Ridiculous idea.
Yes, But aren’t there any other experienced defenders around? And why are we looking to get one in the last week of the window, given it was a pressing need.
They could have bought Lucumi if they needed an experienced guy
It seems from the outside that many of Allegri’s requests have been ignored throughout this window.
Even just judging by what he said in the press conference about Nkunku and he doesn’t know how he will use him suggests that it was not a player he requested.
This is typical Allegri playing his cards close to the chest. Why tell teams how we plan to use someone? Let them have to scheme in a vacuum.
I am 80% that Max and Tare are carefully collaborating based on need and what is available in the market.
I am 20% concerned that Furlani is pulling the strings and we are simply speculating and looking for player arbitrage opportunties.
Likely it is some mixture of the two.
No worries, he will learn from Tomori.
Inter 1 Udinese 2.
All last year, many said our defense would be good if we just had a DM. Now it’s dark clouds and dead puppies b/c we strengthened said midfield while largely keeping the defense intact.
We have experience players in Gabbia and Tomorri. Are they ideal? Nope. Do they fit the profile of anyone we were going to add in the last month of the Mercato? Yep.
I feel like @Maldini’s Heir: “Let’s stop upgrading individuals and start building a functional unit of 11 players with roles to play based on the system and their characteristics.”
Or I suppose we can continue to moan. Yeah, that’s it. I’ll sit at home next game and refuse to cheer in solidarity with the curva b/c I really wanted Tare to swoop for Guehi earlier in the mercato.
Nah, I’ll support the team.
Forza Milan.
Its not that those 2 cant be good signings, its that the only reliable experience there is Gabbia, and thats not enough. We need a real experienced leader in the back, we need the opposite of what Tomori is now. Those 2 are good for the future, we need someone to control the backline
We will not finish top 4 this season unless the new midfield shields the def, the problems are no clear cdm to me, we have cbs who act like headless chickens, we needed a Kjaer type at the back to marshall the chickens but got another youngster this window got officially disappointing