The summer gone was supposed to be a restart for AC Milan, a chance to start a new project and build on a solid set of foundations, but it was unsuccessful.
Stefano Pioli’s departure was supposed to mark the start of a new, successful era in Milano, but there are no tangible signs of this, at least not yet. Milan sit eighth in Serie A, chances of a Scudetto are below zero and European hopes are losing credibility.
How have we gotten here though?
Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) suggests the faults lie within the summer mercato. It is a window which ‘did not help’ the Rossoneri, as there were no covering gaps or strengthening other areas to offer different options.
Instead, Fonseca has a bit-part squad available to him.
Pavlovic’s addition has rarely been viewed as a positive one, despite some good early showings. An €18 million spending for a player that has not strengthened the defence, even if it seems perfect on paper.
Emerson Royal’s flaws are across the pitch, he cannot defend to a level where any attacking output is massively valued, especially when the Brazilian is yet to provide a goal or an assist. To his credit though, he has raised his performances recently, but more is still needed.
In attack, things are dry. Tammy Abraham and Alvaro Morata have failed to give the Diavolo the needed boost. Morata is a ‘striker who wastes chances’, whilst Abraham fails to score.
Youssouf Fofana’s performances ensure that the summer was not a complete failure, but the Rossoneri are left with a lot to do in the January mercato with a poor record of spending, so hopes are not majorly high.
This summer? This summer they only deepened the crisis and confirmed their incompetence, lack of football knowledge and ambitions.
Exactly. The true wasted opportunity was after making the semi finals of the most prestigious European club cup that Gerry decided to dismantle the team. That’s the true waste.
Dirty rotten scoundrels
This view was is incorrect. The players were identified based on Pioli’s style of play and the main striking force target was Zikzeer with goals expected to come from the supporting forwards, Leao, Reijnders and Pulisic. Fonseca was chosen based on this as he wouldn’t demand change in personnel. But the failure to sign Zikzeer meant Morata would come but he is not the same profile as Giroud which is why Abraham became a target. But Fonseca style of play demands endless pressing and different movements which are not suiting the current forwards. Milan would be much better off playing 4-3-1-2 but now you have a conundrum of Leao/Pulisic/Chukwuezi/Okafor. Pulisic can play as number 10 I suppose Leao as a striker too. But the biggest mishap is the insistence on the 4-2-3-1 formation. Milan has lost more points on that formation compared to when they played 4-4-2 or 4-3-3
The problem is, not only most of the new players and the coach failed to make an impact and raise the level of the team but, on the contraire, made it worse, but many, if not most of us posters who should know less than “experienced” directors foresaw that these names wouldn’t be a success.
You can’t make a serious claim that you want the team to do better than a second place last season and 20 points behind the leader and then hire Fonseca, a man who never even made it to an UCL spot with Roma and finished almost 30 points behind Inter in 2021. Perhaps the management took for granted our ability to reach the UCL spot and that they wouldn’t need to go for a big coach. Was the reason to save money ? A yes-man ? A shorter contract ? A stall until a bigger name cames ? Feel free to guess.
Emerson is bad but not dissapointing, because almost everyone here expected him to be this bad. You can’t seriously tell me you watched him in Tottenham or looked at his stats and expected him to be anything more than a liability. Am I a Royal hater ? Maybe, maybe not, but he sure isn’t making it hard to pick on him.
There was some hype surrounding Pavlovic, and I myself bought into it even though I didn’t watch the player. But when you tell me we targeted a player because he is a left footed CB capable of helping us build attacks from behind, only for him to have 2 right legs, I wonder if Moncada did actually watch him ?
Fofana was the least bad and the most expensive. But again everyone saw that he isn’t a DM, because it turned out that he wasn’t a DM. So why did the management choose him out of all the available DMs, even though sometimes better names were cheaper (Hojbjerg is going to be sold for 14M€) ? Feel free to guess.
I won’t focus too much on Abraham, because he was supposed to be a sub after it turned out that Jovic, who was recently renewed, was too bad.
I think everyone expected Morata to score one and miss 10, and he did bring some help in the buildup and stuff, but I think they settled for a low profile striker because every other option was too expensive and they had to save money to buy stars like Pavlovic and Royal.
In the end, when you don’t take your task seriously and expect the fourth/fifth place to be easy even though every serie A team is trying to improve, don’t expect more than a mid-table ranking.
Horrible summer market as predicted.
Spent 15M on Emerson and 20M on Pavlovic – 35M total AND and they have been WORSE than what we already had in Kalulu – who could play BOTH CB and RB – and we gifted him to a direct rival for a paltry 3M and a cheap buy option. Disgusting. Now Kalulu is thriving.
Tammy has been a flop. Morata should be a backup at best. But you get what you pay for. There is a reason both were available for cheap or on a loan – heck Roma begged us to take Abraham and his fat 6M salary off their books. And the Redbird Lovers wanna still complain about Origi???? LOLOLOLO
Chukuweze is a 28M BUST
Musah is a backup at best. Marginal contribution at best.
RLC great one game; missing the next 7.
Pelligrino, Terracciano, Romero ,etc… trash
We could have signed players such as: Samardzic, Rabiot, Konè, Bonafacie, Giminez, Zirkzee, Thuram, etc…. And we PASSED. Some on FREE”S. 🤡
Fofana, Reijnders and Pulisic – solid. That’s it
And look who we gave away: Adli, Kalulu and Maldini are all doing well, while we suffer.
How is CDK doing BTW?? Thiaw now STARTS but apparently some geniuses on here said he was trash after 6 games and wanted to dump him for 10M?? Ha! Those same donkeys want to dump Theo for peanuts claiming he’s the problem? And not the coach? LOL🤡
Oh ya then there is the “ambitious” hire of the below average coach who hasn’t won anything in Fonseca – who NO other club wanted except us; who alienates our players; throws them under a bus and complains that Italian football is more difficult than UCL football despite wanting to coach in Italy?? Why? Because he was cheap and took a short term deal and won’t ask for anything. This is the mastermind we hired to replace Pioli? Anyone still have his number??
Everything done since the firing of M&M hasn’t worked and we have gone from the height of a Scudetto and a semi-final appearance in UCL to this garbage.
And Redbird Lovers still support Gerry and his trash management team? You know the one lead by “god” himself that seems too busy to work during the transfer window, and an owner who didn’t even show up to our 125 year anniversary?? Ya ya, I’m sure Gerry will show up for the 200th anniversary party just wait🤡
Fkn disgusting.
“Thiaw now STARTS but apparently some geniuses on here said he was trash after 6 games and wanted to dump him for 10M?? Ha! Those same donkeys want to dump Theo for peanuts claiming he’s the problem?”
EXACTLY!! seems like history is destined to repeat itself. I don’t understand the push to have Theo out the door for what looks like paltry sums given what we know he’s capable of….and ofc they’ll regret it (the fans who want him out and management…and then we’ll have to be like we told you so…once more, sigh). Also no one in management is coming out to say he’s not for sale either. I missed Galliani for those sorts of things, whether or not true he conveyed a sense of protection.
Btw just to add to your Fonseca rant…. dude didn’t even get a place on his own but lives at the club (I don’t know if that has changed). He knew he wasn’t going to last long lol
I liked how so many ppl.were going on about how good Pavlovic was…..knowing very well they don’t watch the Serbian league let alone be able to tell the difference in the quality of the two leagues.
It’s why I don’t jump up for new transfers unless it a known quality addition…. therefore I haven’t jumped up in years lol 😂
They don’t want us to jump up these years so far.
More questions than answers from this management so far. Are Reijnders, Puli and Fofana enough credit to cover for all the questionable signings? Probably not.
But then again, for a team that works as disjointed as these guys I’m glad they were able to bring in the three above.
Musah needs a couple of loan spells to improve. Still pretty raw (and young). Pavlo probably just needs more time – new league/country/language and all.
As for the busts, there are so many… So much deadweight we can and should offload… The problem is that at this point I don’t trust the people in charge to sell off question marks and buy exclamation points, including a potential coach replacement.
I don’t dislike Fonseca, I just think he bit off more than he can chew. A lot of Piolismo to undo from the past 5 years.
Most importantly though I just want the management to come out and define their plan. What are we doing? We are not strengthening. Management quietly standing by. What are we waiting for?
Is it the stadium that is still in the planning stages after so many years? Are we depending on the money from that to improve? Because that will take a LONG time given Italian bureaucracy.
Is the project to integrate Futuro crop into the team? Because it’s been 5 years under pioli and 6mos under Fonseca and we’re just now starting to see glimpses of them.
Are we on some sort of a long “soap opera” arc where this team will slowly be improved over like 5 years as to not incur dramatic expenses all at once?
Ultimately has Cardinale bit off more than he can chew and is now drowning in Italian bureaucracy and trying to find a buyer to cut his losses and bail out?
WTF is the plan? i’m sure if they had come out and said something, made a statement, it would be easier to process than not knowing. It would also create less animosity.
But hey, what do I know…
I thought many of here and of which you too agreed then, that it was good management was not coming out to say anything, but keeping everything indoors and keep the false articles guessing.
That that was how a management was supposed to do. Keep talks indoors and work in private. Why the change of heart now on them given a statement.
After all let them keep on been silent. It’s what most fans wanted.
And I find it adorable you still. Use probably not and try to give this management a pass or a level of doubt or some ground for optimism.
I judge this management based on merit. Based on what this team is doing and not doing, based on our results and standings, the behavior of the management doesn’t deserve much merit so far.
They have done well to stabilize us financially. But that’s about it so far. There has been no sporting amplification or strengthening of the squad.
The team clearly needs help and stabilization. That’s where the management comes in to either back the coach to send a signal to the players that things the way forward OR they sack the coach and change direction.
Their silence is tone deaf at a difficult time for the club. As to “ that it was good management was not coming out to say anything, but keeping everything indoors” – I’m not asking for a spending plan or to reveal who they want to sign next. I’m asking for clarity as to where this project is heading in its current capacity.
There’s a difference.
Exactly there is a difference. And that was what most fans wanted then, come. Out and say what the project is, like the previous management did.
As for stabilizing us, I accrue that to Elliot and the previous management. Redbird just continued the already good work been. Done.
That might call for some praise, but it’s no longer enough to cover for this management crimes. They have waffed too much to be praised in any comparable way. And they don’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.
Keep puli, maignan, reijnders, Fofana, Gabbia, Calabria, Terraciano, Leao for now, and pavlovic, honestly everyone else is a potential sell at this point. I want guys like chuk and Okafor to succeed, but they have to be more consistent. Musah is far too raw and needs a high level manager to coach him if he’s gonna improve. Theo will entirely depend if he picks up his slack and starts trying again, cuz rn he’s been a dead weight on high wages. Morata needs to start scoring some goals to prove he deserves to stay. Abraham can go back to roma. Jovic has been genuinley neglected to me, he’s a proven effect off the bench who doesn’t mind not starting and not high wages, so why get rid? If anything bring in a real goalscorer to start and throw Jovic on with him in the last 20m if we need a goal, and Camarda as the 3rd Striker option. Bennacer is simply gonna depend on how he is coming back from so long out. RLC can leave, Emerson can leave, and while I really don’t wanna see him go, if a high enough offer for tomori comes in we’d have to consider it if his form doesn’t get better. We need a solid DM next to Fofana, A RB like Zappa to start w/ Calabria the backup, a 10 who can give backup to Reijnders, a CB if tomori leaves, and an actual goalscorer up top. Potentially a wide forward as well if we sell someone like Okafor or chuk. All the young players like Camarda, Jimenez, Zeroli, Bartesaghi, Liberali and Vos should be gradually given minutes in smaller games to get them up to speed with 1st division level. Last but not least, and news to nobody, we need a real quality coach in the dugout, not this clown Fonseca. Forza Rossoneri