Summer Mercato 2016
2 years before he went to Bayern, there was rumors that Galliani asked Barcelona for Thiago Alcantara and that the price was 22mil. I remember being on the forum debating that we should not even think about it and pay the 22mil. There was also people who believed that 22mil was an excessive amount of money for a than 19/20 year old midfielder who was not getting much time for Barcelona. That was the same same year we bought Ibrahimovic I think. I might be wrong though and it may have been a year after. I think that same summer the U21 Euro was going on and Spain was the winner, with Alcantara being completely dominant in the midfield.

I understand that young players are a risk, but they also offer much greater returns if things work out and you support them the right way.....and if you do your homework. Just imagine if we paid the money and got Verratti. He was right under our noses in Serie B. He was even in Milan years ago training with our youth teams. How the hell can scouts from France see the potential yet ours that operate within Italy couldn't. Of course, PSG could also just throw 12mil away and not care if things were going to work out or not.....but now a few years down the road, it's clear that they knew exactly what they were doing.

Ah, yes......the good old days....Big Grin
Given our situations, Thiago probably would have been a problematic signing for us even if we did make it. The guy was injured a lot the last few years and was basically a non-factor for Bayern for a couple of years sitting on the sidelines. While a team like Bayern had the luxury of having enough bodies who play the same position and not suffer decline in results. What would have been the impact if he played for us? The guy would been branded an injury prone piece of crap and another Galliani flunky at this point.
You can't look at the situation like that. Who knows if he would've gotten the knee injury if he was here. True, Thiago has always been a little injury prone. But when he is on the field he is more often than not one of Bayern's best players. And after all of that...he is still only 24 yrs old and one of the best CMs in European football right now.. There is absolutely no scenario where we would be on the losing side had we signed him for 22mil 4-5 yrs ago. Just ask Bayern. Even through all the injuries, they can sell the guy in a day, for more than double what they paid!...and that would even be a generous deal in today's world.

This is exactly why when players like Oliver Torres become somewhat available, you do all you can to get them. Oliver's situation reminds me so much of Alcantara's. He is in a team that's pretty much well set in terms of the way they play. The coach has his ideas and doesn't deviate from them for anyone. Oliver wants more time on the field because he is good enough for more time on the field. It's just unfortunate that Atketico plays like a machine and unless one of the parts is broken there is no changing. Same exact situation as Alcantara in Barca back than.
I get what you are trying to say, and yes, it is always a good idea to invest in youth. And that, of course, is something Galliani never understood. But other than the financial gain on re-sale, his impact on the field year after year also needs to be adequate for him to be considered a good signing. A team like ours can ill afford to spend 22M on a player and have him not play for two years, because we simply do not have enough quality depth to cover for that. Yes, we might be able to get our initial investment back, but our biggest financial hole isn't the money spent on players, it's on playing horribly and missing CL every year. A player who makes us money on re-sale but doesn't contribute much on the field wouldn't help with that. I wouldn't have thought Thiago would be a bad signing for us by any means, but hindsight being 20-20, if a player who costs 22M is that injury prone, we as a team have to stay away from it.
Nobody can predict a knee ligament injury. I think it would have been worth it. The club wasn't going to be worse off. According to what you are saying Bayern should've never signed Robben. And as a matter of fact, there was rummors of Milan being interested in Robben and people were making the same argument that you are right now. It's obvious who's better off from that transaction.

Our biggest financial hole is mismanaging the budget. Paying a ton of money to players in salaries for ages, while not wanting to spend 20mil on one of the world's brightest midfielders. And you can't ignore the risk. Thiago was virtually risk free in terms of finances. We were always going to be able to get that 20mil back. Whether we were going to get him on the field enough or not...there was no way of telling. Like you said, hindsight is 20-20......and looking at the past 4 years, I'm not sure how signing Thiago would've been a bad idea because we haven't done anything as a club except misperform and mismanage money. So if anything, Thiago would've been a bright spot that we would still have right now. Instead, what have we done with that 20mil?
(03-29-2016, 04:59 PM)nefremo Wrote: Agree, but Seedorf was one of the most complete midfielders to ever play the game. He possessed any quality you can think of. He was technically great and as good as any, he was a physical beast and possessed great pace, defensively he was much much better than some give him credit for, and his football IQ was often the highest on the pitch. These type of players are very hard to find and you can even say the are generational players. 

Either way, we'll just have to agree to disagree.  Okmilan I also think that we define "technical midfielder" a little differently too....or may be talking about different things. I agree that Montolivo is technically good, but he is far away from being a "technical midfielder". For me, players like Iniesta/Verratti are techincal midfielders.....because unlike Montolivo they can get out of trouble in almost any situation. You can see their ability on the ball and they are almost never sloppy on it. They are able to take on a man when needed, they "glue" the ball to their feet and don't care if there is 3 players chasing them to press the ball. Compare that to Montolivo/Bertolacci who possess some technical qualities, and even those are only there in certain circumstances anyway. (when not pressed, deeper positions, etc)

I agree about the pace in the midfield.....it would be nice to have some, but I also think that this can be compensated for, if you have pace and runners on the flanks or the CF position/s. 

I disagree that if Bertolacci improves, than we don't lack technical quality. Even with what he offers at his best, this midfield is still lacking techincally imo. 

But it would be interesting to see what player (they don't have to be realistic, but just so i can get an idea) you think next to Montolivo and Bertolacci will get our midfield set for success. After all, it's all in the right combination of players anyhow. I think there is other combinations other than playmakers that can fix our midfield too. It just has to be the right player/s.

This. I agree with every word.

I think Bertolacci is an average-slightly better version of Poli. Actually, maybe not better, just one offers more defensively and one offers more offensively. Overall quality, same level.. Just attacking players usually get more credit than those doing the dirty work.

Montolivo, in summary: He can throw in a good ball here and there, and recovers possession soundly, but he cannot dribble out of tight situations, messes up some simple passes, and is not very creative at all. He's said this season that Miha required him to play a different role which was more of a ball recovering defensive one, I think Miha did it for a reason.

As for the Oliver Torres discussions, I've been advocating for weeks now that we should be signing both him and Boufal if the opportunities arise. Two extremely talented players, both usually play trequartista but are capable of playing wide midfield roles. They'd be perfect for this Milan, whichever system we play they'll be useful. I think that's an important quality in todays world. If you look at all the top clubs, most of their top players can play almost anywhere on the pitch. Iniesta can play on the wings, CM, trequartista.. Same with Rakitic. Almost every top player actually, even Reus for example, he can play striker, wide mide, trequartista.. Almost any top player I can think of is versatile these days and it's important to have players like this because it's depth without numbers. I think those are good signs for talent that can develop. Look at Bayern, how often their midfielders play in defence or vice-versa, or how often their forwards (Muller) can slot into midfield and whatnot.

Players like Menez, Ben Arfa, they could be your X factor in a complete team, but you can't completely rely on them. I think our priority should be building the best midfield we can.
For me, midfield is the most important part of the pitch. We could blow our entire budget on midfield for next year and I'd honestly be happy. With a solid enough midfield, our defenders immediately look better because they're under less pressure, while our attackers can receive the ball in more dangerous spaces, thus creating more scoring opportunities.
Siamo a posto cosi.
nefremo, just to give an idea, if I could have a dream signing for the midfield, it would be Pogba, although we know that will simply not happen. Roberto Soriano also has characteristics that would be of interest, in that he has pace, has decent quality and is tactically disciplined. I'm not saying he's the answer (honestly I would like someone who offers more quality and guarantees), but he has qualities that I'd be looking for.

Kovacic has been linked again today and I wouldn't be against signing him, I'm a fan of his so that might be an option. Not that dominant physically, but he can work box to box and has excellent technical qualities. Vazquez is also linked, but either he has to play as a traditional trequartista or as a supporting forward, so I don't fully consider him an option for midfield.

On Bertolacci, I want to give him another chance because we've seen what he can offer during his time at Genoa. At the very least, he can be a great asset to compete in Serie A. WCMilan, I disagree that he's basically another Poli.

Another thought that came to mind is possibly considering Honda for a midfield role, at least as an option. His workrate since the turn of the year and his ability to hold the ball have impressed me, while his passing range has never really been under question.
I would love Pogba too Big Grin!

Kovacic is similar to Montolivo (in style). But I do think that he has the potential to become a much better player. I would welcome him with open arms but how we use him (with or without Montolivo) will be the question. That obviously depends on who else is there in the midfield.

About Vazquez, i agree with you. He is more of an attacking line reinforcement than midfield. I like him as a player, but as you said, he can only play in certain systems and the players around him need to compensate for the way you use him. In a variation of 4-4-2/4-2-3-1/4-4-1-1, I would like the player behind the 1 to be more of a David Silva type (roam around more and focus more on possession and involved in the build up, so more of a midfielder) rather than Vazquez type (more of a support striker type and more interested in finishing up the move rather than getting involved in the build up). I think the difference is that a Silva type of player gives you the freedom to play another more expressive player in the midfield and you'll still have balance......while with Vazquez there you'll almost certainly have to play 2 defensive minded CMs (holders) behind him. You can have success with either way.....just my preference is the 1st because I believe that way you have more technical ability in the midfield (deeper positions too) and can control and dominate a game much more frequently.

Agree on Honda. I always wondered why no coach has tried him in the midfield yet. I don't think that he is a player of the highest quality, but he is useful and the last couple of months he has probably been 1 of our best players.
(03-29-2016, 05:06 PM)Mystik Wrote: It's water under the bridge now but we really should have gone after Thiago Alcantara some years back before he moved to Bayern. Would have been perfect for our midfield. I also remember the days when we were linked to players like Modric and there was actually a debate on the forum as to whether he was good enough ("Milan quality"). Ah, the good old days.. Grinundwech

Wouldnt of mattered , hed of Turned Milan down (Alcantara)

Boufal...Torres Kovacic .Guys come on , lets be real.I know what Id like and for the most part we're in agreement on what we need.But Im pretty sure the summer will be a bust.I mean look at last year , first time we had a decent budget in AGES!!!! Main problem area...still not fixed.Well they did buy no MASSIVELY overpay for a dud with some good form last year for Genoa