Now that one of the most revolutionary summer windows in AC Milan’s history has been completed, the ball passes to Massimiliano Allegri.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below), Milan feel they are in excellent hands, the best possible in fact. After a 2024-25 season to forget, they couldn’t have found a more confident leader to entrust with a new project.
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The revolution was profound because it needed to signal a break with what had happened over the past 12 months. And so it happened, with a transfer market in which significant investments were made and almost all players arrived ready to play a leading role right away.
The management believe that they have done their bit by giving Allegri a squad that is fit to challenge in the competitions that Milan will have this season, but as always the field will tell the truth.
Allegri’s past
Allegri is a coach who has almost always gotten the most out of the teams he’s been given. In his first spell at Milan, he immediately won the Scudetto, capitalising on the key signings of Ibrahimovic, Robinho, and Cassano (in January). Before his dismissal in January 2014, he always managed to qualify for the Champions League.
At Juventus, he took on Conte’s complicated legacy, re-motivating the squad and making use of the top players he was given. In terms of trophies won (only one), his second Juventus stint was the most challenging, the one that brought him the least satisfaction, but it was complex.
The sale of Ronaldo, the Super League bubble, and the capital gains scandal – with the points penalty and departure of president Andrea Agnelli – made it very choppy waters for Max to deal with, yet the ship never sank.
This is why Milan trusts him: they are convinced that he will bring out the best in the players who didn’t perform at their best last year and that it won’t take long to bring in the new signings.
Solutions
The quick recovery against Lecce after the shock defeat to Cremonese in their league debut shows that Allegri has the group under control. The feeling conveyed on Friday night is different from the downward spiral that gripped both Paulo Fonseca and Sergio Conceiçao last season.
The break will serve the Livorno-born coach to further refine the situation, given that upon restarting he’ll be able to count on the jewel Christopher Nkunku, who must be fully exploited due to his obvious quality.
He and Luka Modric can make the Diavolo dream, and Max is studying how to harness all his talent. He will certainly start with the three-man defence, which was supposed to be a temporary solution for preseason but is now a cornerstone to limit lapses in concentration.
The mission to be achieved at all costs is to concede fewer goals than in 2024-25; the rest will be done by the play (an aspect that still needs work) and the individuals. Allegri is banking heavily on the new version of Rafael Leao – who he will use as a striker – with Nkunku and Santiago Gimenez as options.
❌ #ACMilan’s summer mercato must be deemed a FAILURE for multiple reasons
🗣 @olifisher explains why 👇 pic.twitter.com/0x3T8QKWwf
— SempreMilanTV (@SempreMilanTV) September 3, 2025
This is why the former Juventus coach will be able to decide whether to deploy an attack with a striker and two midfielders (3-4-2-1) or a 3-5-2, in which the central midfielders (Rabiot plus one of Fofana, the injured Jashari or the revitalised Loftus-Cheek) will have freedom to cash in on Ballon d’Or winner Modric’s long-range passes.
Allegri dreamed of a midfield like this, and with it he hopes to achieve his goal of ‘finishing in the top four because Milan can’t stay out of the Champions League’. To reach that goal, they’ll need to be consistent and make the most of the weeks without competition to develop the team.
Allegri is a master at this, and he faces yet another challenging mission in a career studded with triumphs: finally unleashing Leao and strengthening a defence that has shown too many flaws in the past.
Regarding the comment from Oli.
He seems to forget, that we play 1 match a week. No european football means less attraction from better players, as the case of Akanji has shown. If you base your argumentation on numbers and say, that if you sell for X, you should buy for X, then in my opinion you don’t understand how current season should work.
Thiaw made some good matches, but he was very uncertain most of the time – selling him for 40M is a very good deal. De Winter is a good replacement in my opinion, he needs time, the same as any other new guy on the team.
True, the striker wasn’t brought in, but what were the real options really?
Harder? A no name from Sporting for 25M and I think that I am not the only one who was sceptical about him? Vlahović was an option, but not with that contract (which was handled very good by the club in my opinion). Boniface didn’t pass the medical. Who else was there as a real option? Real option I mean with not worth 50M+ or already on huge contract and willing not to play in Champions League?
People talk about giving Santi Gimenez his time, but then bash the club for not buying a striker – make up you mind.
Allegri has his pros and cons, but in the long run, I think he will manage to get us the Top4.
We are not the same club as 10-15 years ago, lots has changed along the way. You may accept it or not, but this is the situation that we are in.
I am not saying that the Mercato was handled great – some things, especially in defence, could have gone better, sure, but in reality, we are in a rebuild phase (yet again) after horrible last season. But it wasn’t bad either.
In all fairness – do you think that the current squad is unable to get to the Champions League next year?
This. And I don’t usually read Ollie’s articles because 99,99% of the time is nonsense. Your reply was worth it. Thank you.
Agree, I have no doubt to the current squad that we have after mercato closed… Let’s hope there will be no more injured player from now on…
“People talk about giving Santi Gimenez his time, but then bash the club for not buying a striker – make up your mind.” This is SM’s bread and butter spin both sides of the coin as a negative because as long as Americans are involved everything is terrible.
Time to play football, support our beloved team and hope we qualify for CL next season. I would love to win the scudeto but considering everything 1-4 is a success. January window we can tweak the team, and now we have a man that is able to do that.
You all have spoken well…
Let’s be optimistic
Crazy to read so much absurdity in the comments. As if Milan fans should support the venture of greedy and arrogant vultures that care only about their own pockets. There is nothing for football fans in that redbird policy and being “optimist” is simply being blind about the current state of the club. One year ago the same people here were bragging about winning the scudetto and we know how it ended. And now you’re here being patronizing… Fans like that are worthy of such ownership.
Shut up with this nonsense, were you born yesterday? You think you’re pure and a higher class of fan because you don’t like the big scary American business men? Seriously all top clubs are owned by big time funds. Name one that isn’t? We can debate about the ethos of modern football all we want but reality is reality, if big business is scary for you then stay away from top football and follow a provincial sides like Palermo in serie b.
You can chose to have that serf mindset and give up all your critical sense, even celebrate that rich parasites spoil everything in this world. Embrace being a customer, a two-legged wallet. Don’t tell me that people can’t make a difference because you chose to side with people that see you as nothing more than an ant. There is a long tradition of civil resistance, protests and boycotts in European countries such as Italy. Sorry for the nuisance but as you can notice with la Curva protests or many comments here, people won’t shut up and bend toward some of the biggest a$$holes alive that destroy everything in the name of money. There is still hope that those American psychos will leave as fast as they came and that Milan could have an ownership that is actually interested in football relevance, like most top European clubs.