AC Milan were really close to signing Marcus Thuram from Borussia Mönchengladbach on a free transfer in the summer, but close means no cigar and it came back to bite them.
As our colleagues at SempreMilan.it report, it was a long negotiation that the Milan management pursued with conviction for several weeks, also reaching an agreement with the player and his entourage.
The terms that they had verbally agreed were as follows: a five-year contract which was worth €5m net per season in fixed salary (with Growth Decree to apply) and this also overcame the competition from PSG.
Then came Inter
An agreement was reached but then torn apart a few hours later when Inter made an offer of €6m net per season for the French striker, who at that point decided to accept their proposal.
Giorgio Furlani and Geoffrey Moncada thought they had the offer in the bag and therefore decided not to raise their bid, allowing Thuram to join Inter and instead betting on Noah Okafor, who cost €16m.
Thuram bullied Milan
Saturday’s derby was dominated by Thuram who, with his physicality and incredible speed turned the Rossoneri defence upside down, already weakened by the absence of Fikay Tomori and Pierre Kalulu.
The moment that stands out was the second goal, where he showed his speed to get onto a feed from Denzel Dumfries then square Malick Thiaw up before finding the top corner with a thunderbolt.
Less of inter players please, the derby is over. We lost end of story. New week, New possibilities.
Amen.
No no. If we’re going to talk about how we stole Reinjders from Barca after we won vs Bologna, then we have to balance it off by other teams stealing players from us when we lose. It’s only fair. Especially when that player specifically scores against you
Yup.
Penny wise pound foolish it would seem since we did not source a replacement.
Not signing Thuram was fine BUT not signing a similar young player to sub/take over for Giroud was not – and that was a huge mistake by management. We needed a number 9 and didn’t get it. Jovic isn’t it. We Waited until end of summer with little choice left and could not even close Taremi. Huge miss IMO. Giroud cannot play every 3 days as we saw him visibly fatigued in the derby and we are only in September. We have 50M in players (Musah and Chukuweze) sitting the bench and I wonder if that $$ would have been better served in securing a #9…..time will tell.
Thuram is a crap player, he is a centreforward that can not score to save his life. The fact that his scored against Milan shows just how a$$ Pioli’s gameplan was and in how poor state our defense is.
It’s a big problem because inter continuously exploit our lack of shape when they resist our press and hit us on a counter. If there’s one thing you can really give merit to inter is that they are almost throughout the entire game in shape while our team squabbles around when having to defend their counters. So for me it’s not a matter of not having quality defenders because we’re not talking about a prime acerbi and darmian here but their entire team transitions in shape really well which makes them so solid defensively
There’s no way he will score a goal like that again in his career.
The one time he turns up and it has to be the derby!
That’s why Bayern and Chelsea decided not to sign him. And instead go for Harry Kane and Nicolas Jackson!
Agree – he’s given free rein by Pioli to run rings around our defense in acres of space and all of sudden we missed out on Van Basten.
He’s not a crap player,he’s been great for Inter but his goal was lucky against us. Way better than Okafor for sure
Someone needs to tell Cardinale that being cheap doesn’t win titles. Whatever people keep saying. Thuram would cost in total a bit more than the fee for Okafor.
Untrue..5 year contract for 7M makes 70M and whatever that growth decre takes.
I checked his salary. He is gonna cost inter 38.5M over 5 years plus a 640k signing bonus.
I’ll just assume he’s also gonna get a raise in about 2 years.
Now if we’d match this inter would just raise again.
So it made no sense to continue going for him because Milan would back of in the end. 5M was already a lot for our finances
Plus he was going to sign for Inter anyways – even if Milan paid him more. He said it himself he was close to joining them 2 years ago and since Inter showed they were still interested in him, he chose Inter.
So it’s #fakenews to say Milan lost him due to 1M€. They lost him to Inter 2 years ago.
They lost him when Pioli told him he will be a backup to Giroud or the rotation option with him. I think anyone serious can understand that. If he was told he will be the undisputed no.1 if he plays good, I don’t think he would be so eager to join Inter. They told him that, 100%.
LMAO! A few years ago Origi scored against us, and signed him on a free transfer and gave him a four year contract worth €4m. How did that pan out?
I bet if this season we had signed Thuram, and Inter signed some x player to play alongside Lautaro, and that x player scored against us in derby then you would’ve said “Thuram is overpaid, worse than Origi” And Cardinale, should’ve broken the bank, instead of signing a free agent!
Ha ha. Good one. And so true.
The issue is the media have no shame even when it comes to reporting factual stuff. And football is mostly opinion!
Also doesn’t help when fans loose their serenity, after one game and demand bank breaking transfers. Especially when there, is long season ahead.
Um we spent the most out of every team in Serie A… And you say I talk garbage…
Yes, you do. this again is garbage as you seem to not understand anything. Spent most and bought how many players? Did you include the free transfers and their value or that is irelevant? Is Thuram a bad player because Inter didn’t spend anything on the fee? 😀 That is pretty relevant, if you buy 30 players for 5M and spend 150M, did you improve the team? That is what I think about half of the signings, not an improvement, but cheap opportunity. You can spend 200M on 20 players, not really what I am talking about. Because your reply isn’t even connected to what I wrote, you don’t’ understand it obviously. If they sold Tonali for 70M, they could have brought in 2 proper players to replace him for that money, but they got 3x20M players and we’ll see. Buying cheap players and rejects won’t win titles, you can spend 700M on 100 players every season.
Same as explaining to me how Pioli is a better coach than Inzaghi because he has 1 Serie A title and Inzaghi has none. That is enough for me.
The way it whines and whines
Definitely giancarlo and the timezone checks out ass well.
We have a salary cap of 5 million per year & a player like Thuram does not deserve an exception.
Yes, that is not how you will win titles. And how Calhanoglu and Kessie were lost.
Altho Hakan is the perfect no 10 for Pioli, we still won a Scudetto w/o him. Not the same case as Kessie tho. We still haven’t figured to replace that puzzle until now. And I really hope that it won’t bite us in the end again.
I really couldn’t give a f$$k about Hakan.
And
WE WON THE SCUDETTO WITHOUT HIM!
I would like to remind you that Calhanoglu is the worst #10 in Milan’s history. I hated every minute of his useless presence on the field.
The best transfer made by the club that summer was transferring this piece out for free.
Wow, talk about blind hatred..
I also dislike that dude but he was among the better players when he was at the club
I can dislike Calhanoglu and I didn’t like him that much. But he is playing on DM like a new player. He replaced Brozovic without issues. qqq You’re a joke.
He was a counterproductive player with disgusting attitude.
“I DON’T ******* UNDERSTAND YOU” – Zlatan Ibrahimovic
That was my thoughts every single game he played.
At every possible opportunity, instead of choosing an intelligent continuation of attack, this imbecile hit at the goal with all his might and always missed.
Absolutely uncomparable with other #10’s in the club history. Total disgrace having him among the list.
The fact that we missed him, Jackson (Villareal) turned out to be closer that it was on the news, but we signed Okafor instead, just add more confusion to our strategy in signing a striker. And I haven’t even added the last day’s fiasco. Well, yes, there’s no such thing as a perfect management.
This deal would have cost us around 50m EUR in total, including alleged 10m sign on fire his agents wanted, that’s more or less the cost of Chukwueze deal, so we could easily afford him.
We could afford him, but he choose Inter.
Thuram isn’t a striker, he’s a forward. That’s why his goalscoring record is modest, and he played in a crap league. Regardless, there’s no point crying now. It was always going to be difficult to get him. Missing out on Retegui though is inexcusable. I hope when the racist Pioli is sacked at the end of the season, the next coach wants to bring in some Italians.
Exactly. Retegui is a striker whilst Thuram is not. Not going Retegui for 12 million is quite dumb indeed.
What is the difference between Forward and Striker? Are they different positions? Just like Centre Back and Defender?
You can disagree with Pioli and his tactics. But IMHO, there is no way he is racist, don’t put false allegation.
Not positions but the way the play. Icardi is a striker 1/1. He is there to score goals, not much more than that. Thuram is the opposite, he is there to be involved in play, create chances and will score also.
Standing firm on their offer then getting bit in the as$ again. We lost over 120 million in transfer fees because their computers reassured them it was the right decision. Then Hakan, Gigi, Kessie all left. had to sell Tonali after, gave playing time to Brahim to get him ready for Madrid. Only Krunic is playing from a title winning midfield…how did it go against a good team?
Stupid moneyball and cap salary. We lose great player because 1 million
We still have to see until the end of season before judging, remember Piatek also did rack an amazing goals and where he is now?
Yessss I’m so happy lol. I’ll give you guys credit for putting out the article. After all, if we’re going to talk about how we stole Reinjders from Barca after we won vs Bologna/Roma etc, then we have to balance it off by other teams stealing players from us when we lose. It’s only fair. Especially when that player specifically scores against you. This is what spending an extra mil per year on a free player gets you…the bragging rights in the derby and psychology. It’s money well spent. He doesn’t even have to score for Inter the rest of the season, his name is already in the books. Years later Inter fans will still be talking about how he humiliated us in the derby.
Just need the Fratessi article now lol 😂
This ppl here are mad because they think RedBird want to save their money from marcus salary. They dont know marcus almost move to IM in january but failed because he is injury, IM promise him starter place in double striker partner with lautaro while in ACM he must compete with giroud ( the same person that make him sit on french NT) . Of course he will choose IM even if we matched IM offer salary . In my personal opinion it is pioli tactic play high line defense that makes IM like superior and can scoring many goal vs ACM , even if lakaka in marcus place that will make lakaka score goal in derby too , nothing change . Pioli must change his high line defense tactic in derby or ACM change the coach
media(.)tenor(.)com/F_Ge7cop4ogAAAAC/coach-slapping.gif
It took him 3 hours but he explained it all.
De Zerbi in,Pioli out,Krunic out