Franco Ordine has claimed that the 2023 summer transfer window was never expected to complete the AC Milan squad but rather was the first step in a ‘restructuring’.
There were 10 new additions during the summer window, starting with the attacking department where Luka Jovic, Christian Pulisic, Samuel Chukwueze and Noah Okafor all arrived. In midfield, Tijjani Reijnders, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Yunus Musah are helping to plug the gap left by Sandro Tonali’s exit.
Marco Sportiello proved himself to be a reliable deputy when called upon, while Luka Romero and Marco Pellegrino were signings for the future and must be handled with care. The squad underwent major upheaval, but will be further strengthened in the coming transfer windows.
Ordine spoke in a column for MilanNews about the upcoming January transfer window an the opportunity to fine tune certain departments after the swathe of new arrivals in July and August.
“I find what is being prepared for the next transfer market both in January and in the summer of 2024 very interesting. I find it interesting for a basic reason which is the following: last summer’s operation was not definitive from the point of view of the refoundation,” he said.
“It is only the beginning of a sort of technical ‘restructuring’ of Milan to correct some unshared choices of the past and to aim for the formula (sustainable football) inspired by Moncada (shared by Elliott and now by Redbird) and that is the search for young profiles capable of being valorised by the Italian league.
“The names already published by the various market specialists (Miranda of Betis, Kwior, Gabbia di return, Popovic (born in 2006), Ouèdrago (born in 2006) tell precisely about this plan which will have to be completed with the choice of a centre-forward.”
Essentially they want us to be a high end feeder club like Dortmund.
He is right.
Just like the 2019 mercato was the beginning of Milan restructuring and start of a new cycle.
Some fans wanna attack players who just got to Milan couple months ago and complain without granting those new players a little time to settle in.
Milan spent 90 mil in that summer after spending 70 the previous January on Piatek and Paqueta.
That summer Theo. Leao, Rebic, Krunic, Bennacer, Duarte were bought. Which one of those hit the ground running from day 1? None.
People criticize Jovic who Milan signed for free, but go check how Leao and Rebic did the 1st 5 months of that season.
30 mil for Leao and Rebic was actually swapped for a player who Milan bought for almost 40 mil.
After they settle in and adjust to the new country, new culture, new teammates, they started producing. Well, all except Duarte. He was a waste of money. Thanks Serginho. Great eye for talent, brother.
Give players some time.
And you can’t cover all holes in the squad in 1 window, especially when you had so many holes.
Ok, so we should have given CDK, Origi, Vranckx and Dest more time, right?! Got it! Keep the same energy, it works both ways.
Btw when we got Theo and Co we basically had no team. They weren’t established names. Two different times. This summer we already had a core but got established names.
Nah its the end man, Milan getting relegated soon, we suck so much according to the online fanbase
That’s bs name me one regular commenter here who actually has said that we will or would be relegated, man up to your words and say the exact user or even better name me 3 or 5 who has said that. If you cant do that then please shut the f up.
I think he’s being sarcastic….
sorry for the late reply but im not so sure but fair enough.
Erm we won the Scudetto just the season before and had just made the semi-finals of the champions league….why did we need ‘restructuring’????
Ibrahimovic was retiring which was a massive loss so surely the focus should’ve been on signing a new Ibrahimovic (instead we signed Jovic).
Had we just say Loftus-Cheek, Pulisic + A New Ibra (say, I don’t know, Lewandowski) we’d be competing for the Scudetto.
But instead we ‘restructured’. And we’re going to keep ‘restructuring’ instead of winning Scudetti.
Spot on. Reconstruct what? The project just started getting matured, our key players just entered the most productive phase (24-29), it was about to move to the next (and top) level and yet our management decided to scrap it and build from scratch.
My feeling is also the same, we will see a lot of “reconstruction” in the future.