AC Milan have found themselves in the difficult position of being unable to spend in the January window having used their budget in the summer, but having had little return from those signings.
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Today’s edition of Corriere dello Sport (via PianetaMilan) begins by stating that Gerry Cardinale gave a precise instruction regarding the transfer budget for the 2022-23 season: a net spend of €50m and no more, which was spent in the summer and represented the highest net spend in Serie A.
Napoli for example spent more but they also sold players for big sums and thus gave their balance sheets some profits. Looking back to Zaniolo, Roma were asking for €60m to sell him in the summer and now the demands have been halved, but Milan have exhausted their budget by staking everything on Charles De Ketelaere.
The Belgian has not impressed so far and precisely for this reason Milan attempted to buy Zaniolo on loan with a conditional obligation to buy that would be triggered upon qualification for the Champions League, but the figure for the buy-out would not have exceeded €20-25m.
The American ownership do not consider it correct to provide extra resources to repair potential market errors from the summer, because having a budget means respecting it and making the allocated resources bear fruit.
None of the players bought in the summer have been able to make a contribution so far, so much so that Pioli has practically only used the players who won the Scudetto last year. However, many of these, due to injuries and post-World Cup fatigue, are no longer performing as they did at the beginning of the season.
The lack of depth and reliable fresh legs is hurting Milan and while Maldini and Massara have always been praised in the last three years for the way they operate on the market, the growth has stopped at present and the results are lacking.
The crux of the Maldini-Massara renewal resulted in the granting of decision-making autonomy to the technical area within the budgets set by financial planning, but replacing a method with individual skills is always very risky.
