AC Milan now have exciting possibilities after the sale of Sandro Tonali, which was only agreed because the player was keen on joining Newcastle United.
The decision to sell Tonali to the cash-rich Premier League side certain sparked a largely negative reaction from the Milan fan base, though eyebrows were raised when the figures of the deal started to come out.
Fabrizio Romano reports that it is an additional €70m deal with add-ons included, while Milan will also receive 10% of the proceeds from any future resale. It’s a record sale for Milan, while Tonali becomes most expensive Italian player in history.
Concerns remain about Milan’s project, and how the proposed RedBird ‘Moneyball’ model runs the risk of seeing the club develop into another Borussia Dortmund or RB Leipzig, given the emphasis on player trading to self-finance signings.
We asked James Horncastle from The Athletic on our latest podcast episode about how Tonali’s record-breaking move actually move came about.
“It doesn’t get agreed upon unless the player wants to go. There’s probably a player the other side of town who could go to the Premier League if he wants, with a club in more financial distress than Milan are, and that’s Nicolo Barella at Inter. And look where Barella is now: still an Inter player,” he said.
“I think that’s something you have to bear in mind, something that has got a little bit lost in the telling of this story at least in Italy. The player was up for it.
“Whether that’s because the player felt that he’d achieved a lot already with Milan, he’d won the league, he’d gone to a Champions League semi-final… in which he actually played really well. People forget amidst the chaos of that first hour that Tonali was actually pretty good in that game.
“Leao, who the club have got to sign a new contract, which for all the criticism of the ownership and the sale of Tonali, they should remember that they’ve inverted a trend here in that Donnarumma, Kessie and Calhanoglu left for nothing.
“The club has invested in Leao to get him to stay, and I would have been a lot more concerned about losing Leao as Serie A MVP than I am about losing Tonali, with the greatest respect to Tonali.
“The other player I’d say is Mike Maignan, who is for me the other most important player at AC Milan. That’s not to say the others are all expendable, but if you were to ask me which two I would want to keep the most on a desert island it would be Maignan and Leao.
“The reality is that clubs in Italy have to be pragmatic when Premier League clubs or state-owned clubs like Paris Saint-Germain come in with indecent proposals for their players.
“Because this does allow Milan to be particularly active in the transfer market and spread that money around and give the depth to Pioli that he didn’t have last season, either because he didn’t use the players at his disposal in an effective way or because the market last year wasn’t good enough.
“I’m quite excited. Even if a lot was made about Marcus Thuram missing out on Marcus Thuram, that’s because Milan still have a budget to stick to both in terms of how much they spend and what the salary cap is.
“They are the most agile team in Italy at the moment on the transfer market. All the things you read about are Milan signing Loftus-Cheek or looking to sign Pulisic, Chukwueze, Kamada… they can do all these deals if they want to at the price they believe is the right price.
“A lot of clubs in Italy at the moment can’t do anything. So in that sense, it’s one of those things where you just have to be patient and take the long view on these things.”
Moncada and Furlani can’t close s*it.
Exactly 💯
“It doesn’t get agreed upon unless the player wants to go”.
Well of course. The main talking point is the reason why he wanted to go. And it’ll still be a mystery for a few years from now. No newly signed players would like to talk about that kind of sensitive thing. They all will say some diplomatic and template-ish sentences. Well unless the player is Ibra.
Mystery? Going from 2.5m a year to 9m a year and playing in the most popular, visible league on earth. Don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out.
Of course on the surface we can only see high salary, exciting league, exciting project, yada yada. But it’s Tonali we’re talking about. There’s always more than meets the eye.
Also a more exciting project than Milan, Newcastle is on top 4 last season. You got high salary, played in hottest league in the planet (although it’s overpriced). One of the most decorated club in the world aiming for top 4 finish or worst european competion next season? Can you call that an exciting project?
If we’re talking about player like Leao, then yes, it’s a no brainer. But the thing is, we’re talking about the rare breed, fully heritage player named Tonali. What we’ve been seeing and experiencing about the values that he believes in, it’s hard to digest that is all about gold and glory.
You think all these players renew with Milan that they dont have opportunities outside the italy.
You should be follish to write it just for salary.Every player in Milan have opportunities to get good salary atleast 2 or 3times what they earn at Milan.
You should understand why they renewed and left but they could have done year before if they want.
All big teams want players from our squad but they were with Milan.
Without Leao we wouldn’t even have made Europe at all, Tonali isn’t even our best midfielder, heritage? He supports Milan, he isn’t a Milanese, just like Donnarumma wasn’t, he’s from Lodi, the city the Milanese actually destroyed in the 12th century. So no I don’t know what heritage you’re talking about, it’s like saying someone from Manchester has full heritage because they play for Liverpool, someone from the Catania has full heritage while representing Palermo, or Bergamo(Atalanta) has full Milanese heritage. Get real you’re talking out of your arsehole.
James is so full of shEEt as usual
“The player was up for it.”
“And look where Barella is now: still an Inter player”
So Barella wasn’t up for it or was it the club wasn’t up for it? Why is it the narrative that Barella wasn’t sold because the club resisted but Tonali was sold because he wanted to go? It could well have been Milan didn’t resist the transfer in as much as the player wanted to go.
It takes two sides to tango. The Club HAS to approve the sale, the literal meaning of a transfer. And the player HAS to agree terms. We can speculate all we want as to who did what but I think it was mutually beneficial to keep it neutral.
But my gut feeling is that Tonali didn’t feel the love reciprocated upon the news of the transfer. If the club resisted he would have felt reassured of his value at the club..
Yep.
Inter rejected the offer because it was EU50m which, if you are inclined to take negotiations personally, is an insult for Barella.
Inter are not blowing up their own squad, despite having no money. We’ve weakened our squad which was already a mile behind Inter and they’re getting stronger.
IM asking price 100m euro for barella . NU only offer 50m euro for barella , why barella offer lower than tonali ? Well better ask newcastle director , perhaps he think tonali better than barella ? No player are untouchable in IM , not even barella as long as the offer are over price ,they would gladly take it , they need to pay oaktree in 2025
Exactly. It’s not like Barella is untouchable. They just received a joke as the offer. If it had been 100M€ I bet a certain kid called Sandro would still be in our roster.
Inter made sure they will not sell Barella this season. Its for 50million or 100million.
Newcastle can increase the bid but Inter resist for any offer.
Liverpool could have come into picture for 70million, they went for dominik szozobai for 70+million.
Inter resist for any offer for this season, maybe next season they will sell but not this year.
“Inter made sure they will not sell Barella this season. Its for 50million or 100million.”
Then offer them 150M€ and they WILL sell. It’s not about principle – it’s about the right offer. Money talks.
I agree here. Of course Inter will sell Barella if a right offer came and I have a feeling Newcastle didn’t make a large enough offer when they approached Inter. So when they approached Milan for what is the next best option,. then they offered a little more to sweeten the pot. And they offered 70 of which Milan gets about 50-55 up front. Newcastle basically was checking the market and got lucky with Milan.
Wait did he just say Tonali had a great game in the UCL semi? Umm he was literally the reason we had to climb a 2-0 deficit rather than 1-0 smh
He failed to track his man after being caught up too high up the field…as a DM 🤦♂️
U can play well for the rest of the agme but if ur actions costed a loss then it doesn’t really matter
Wasn’t the biggest fan of his interview. Seemed like he was stating opinion as fact a lot.
Just remember the timeline of the players he talks about in comparison to Maldini being in charge because while Maldini was in charge Milan were building a squad to win now they are building a squad to be competitive.
Leao signed before Maldini was sacked while the project still had ambition to win.
Tonali left straight after Maldini was sacked when the club made it clear in a meeting with players that everyone was expendable and the project was to be competitive.
My understanding of how Maldini approached situations like this was that he would not deny a player the opportunity to double a salary, for example, at a sum Milan has no capacity to match, without seeking input from the player.
The conversation went something like ‘Club X has offered us $ for you on conditions we can’t match. We don’t want to accept the offer, we love you and want to continue to build the project around you but we want to know what you think.’
It wasn’t up to the player, per se, but there was a collaborative approach.
What was the conversation with Tonali like? Of course Tonali agreed to leave. That’s not the story, it is a necessary condition of the sale. The story is why he agreed and there is nothing but BS and cliches which fills this space.
This will get me to my next post.
There is a tendency to dismiss the criticism of Tonali’s sale as the emotional reaction of fans who don’t understand the business decisions of big business men. This is a strawman.
Putting aside the cultural/emotional/intangible issues associated with the sale, it was a dumb business decision, completely at odds with Moneyball principles applied to building a squad. I say this for the following reasons:
1. Tonali’s value, in terms of the cash which can be immediately re-invested, is in the range of EU65m to EU70m. It appears that it is bonuses which gets the deal near EU80m.
2. Selling Tonali left us with no starting calibre midfielder until Bennacer is fit in February 2024. However, and in reality, Bennacer will not be the starting-calibre-Bennacer until very late next season if at all.
3. With no starting calibre midfielder there is a need for something between 4 and 5 midfielders who Pioli trusts. We need this number of players whether whether we play a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3 (with the latter formation now being floated as a possibility by Pioli). It should be mentioned here that just because Pioli approves a purchase does not mean he trusts a player. Trust will be determined during training and Pioli has just refused to play players for a season despite a desperate need to do so. There is a baseless assumption which is currently being made that Pioli did not ‘approve’ of the likes of Vranckx and Pobega. For example, we know Pioli thought highly of Pobega early last season, that things changed and that Pobega then found himself back in favour later in the season.
4. An immediate issue with needing 4-5 players in a position is the likelihood that at least 1 of the players we sign will flop. No one gets all of these signings correct, no matter the budget. I would think the further we dig into our range of options the less likely the player is to be a success.
5. Tonali’s sale value does not cover the cost to replace the midfield. At best it covers the cost of 2.5 to 3 players of a value such that we have a 50% to 70% chance of the player being a success within a few years (remember that Bennacer and Tonali took between 2 and 4 full seasons to really ‘hit their straps’). At EU20m to EU30m we are not buying guarantees for next season. Guarantees look like Frattesi, which cost EU40m.
6. As such, the net gain of midfielders following Tonali’s sale is 1.5 to 2 players. Let’s be generous and say we’ll have a double pivot and no depth.
7. We then need to look at the other high value assets we could have used to fund a sale. Leao is an obvious example but I’ll exclude him because there does not appear to have been any concrete interest at a value which would warrant his sale (i.e. approximately EU150m).
8. Following on from 7, there are teams who are in the market for quality keepers who can distribute, generally. There has been specific interest in Maignan. Theo has also garnered real interest. Both of these players could likely generate a sale of a sum which in the range of the Tonali sale (i.e. EU80m). We have refused to entertain the sale of either.
9. But what is the cost to replace Maignan or Theo and what would be the actual, realisable proceeds of a sale and how does that compare with Tonali? I would include the cost to build depth in the position. This assessment will necessarily be circumstantial as it will depend on who is/was available.
10. In relation to the potential sale of Theo. I assess the net gain to be in the range of EU50-60m (based on a sale at about EU70-80m). He could be replaced with Carlos Augusto for a sum of about EU20m. In reality that is a downgrade of a 9-9.5 left back to a 8-8.5 left back. He plays for a club, Monza, with which we have a connection and whose owners are looking to sell out of Monza (Berlusconi’s family wants to sell the club). Udogie is a good young player who may not fit into Ange P’s plans at Tottenham. You could go down the Parisi rabbit hole if you want. There is also Gallo at Lecce. For depth, there is Valeri at Cremonese who also seems to play 3 left sided roles (i.e. full back, wing back and mid without being an attacking winger). He would cost virtually nothing on account of Cremonese’s relegation. He is an immediate upgrade on FBT. Being a Cremonese player he is also basically local to Milan. We also have Bozzolan who will be close to the grade.
11. In relation to Maignan, I, again, assess the net gain for the sale to be in the range of EU60m (with a sale at about EU80m). Carnesecchi is worth about EU20m (and will now replace Onana at Inter – funny about that). Vicaro was worth about the same amount and was chosen by Ang P at Tottenham so it was not the result of a long-term understanding. We had already agreed terms with Sportiello, on a free transfer, who is very arguably a top 10 keeper in the Serie A. That is particularly important for the potential signing of Carnesecchi who is still young.
12. If we sold Theo or Maignan we’d have a sum in the range of EU60m to spend to upgrade the squad having covered replacements for the players we sold. You could then fund the addition of 1.5 to 2 players to a Tonali-based midfield.
Selling Tonali wasn’t good business. It was pre-mature ejaculation born of a desire to expand the budget. It will have done virtually nothing substantially to improve the squad. It is what I would expect from amateurs who have no experience building a squad.
So that gets me back to the question is my previous post. What was the conversation between Furlani and Tonali like? What are Sandro’s actual reasons for the agreement?
only ranked four in Serie A, we have to be willing to gamble in changing the players we have. especially the players on the bench. we can sell 60% or more of our reserve players. it will be even better if we can keep our best players at the club.
Tonali isn’t our best player, he isn’t even our best midfielder, most consistent yes, but quality wise Bennacer is better. Plus we still have our 2 best players in Leao and Theo, so if he wants to go let him go and earn his money.
I think Tonali naturally thought Milan would have stood up and fight to keep him, as they did with Leao. They refused alot of great offers for Leao, but as the first offer for Tonali came, Milan grabbed it which I think was disappointing to him. Naturally he would agree because then he would feel not wanted. Just my take on it.