Since there aren't many great RB's like you said, it's best we keep Abate because we won't find much better. Our team is/has been a disaster, it's normal that even our better players under perform when that's the case. Santon will definitely not be an improvement to Abate if he came now, and if we want to return to winning we don't have time to wait on players like this as starters. I'd be very happy with signing Santon if he was replacing Constant, that way we wouldn't need to rely on Santon to be our starter, and we'd be upgrading to Constant + I don't deny that Santon will probably be very good in the future...but if we had to replace Abate I'd expect someone with more experience than Santon and generally better like Criscito and move DS to RB, or if we had the money bring our RB position to a completely new level and sign someone like Alves.
Essentially I agree with you, Santon would be a good signing, just not at the expense of Abate. As far as midfielders go, my DREAM signing would be Verratti. Just like you said, I'd only be happy with Nainggolan because he's a good player and he would probably cost half of Verratti. Anyhow, great point that we definitely need to cut down the squad size - I've mentioned my desire for this to happen before, but unfortunately we already only have 30 players, I don't think cutting 3-4 useless players out would allow us much financial freedom anyhow. Hence, if we need to cut the squad we would still need big investment, but surely people like Robinho/Matri leaving would grant us the largest leeway in opening up some finances to build a better squad. Everyone else is on relatively low wages (still high considering their quality), but low in comparison to what we would need to pay any quality players we buy. Apart from that, many of them aren't worth much anyways. Bottom line is, and also my reasoning for not putting too much blame on Galliani, is that we need a cash injection of 40-50M, afterwards wages can be within our budget if we offload our many under par players.
Who I'm interested in though, above all, is this 'Doria' guy. Some members were talking about him in the mercato thread, and also about us having links in the past. At the time I knew nothing about him, but I did some research and I'm finding many people hailing him as the next Silva of his generation. Again, I don't get to happy when I hear stuff like that, because even not too long ago I remember hearing Brescia's president saying Salamon could be the next Baresi, lol. BUT, players like Doria are gambles we need to take for two reasons:
1) There aren't many quality defenders in circulation, the two or three at most that are out there are either untouchable or will cost us half our squad.
2) We've seen success in Silva, we've seen recent young Brazilian defenders succeed such as Marquinhos, and some of you may disagree but I think Juan Jesus from Merda is actually quite talented as well. Tactically naive but the kid possesses everything he needs to be a great defender, almost unbeatable in 1 on 1 scenarios too.
Essentially I agree with you, Santon would be a good signing, just not at the expense of Abate. As far as midfielders go, my DREAM signing would be Verratti. Just like you said, I'd only be happy with Nainggolan because he's a good player and he would probably cost half of Verratti. Anyhow, great point that we definitely need to cut down the squad size - I've mentioned my desire for this to happen before, but unfortunately we already only have 30 players, I don't think cutting 3-4 useless players out would allow us much financial freedom anyhow. Hence, if we need to cut the squad we would still need big investment, but surely people like Robinho/Matri leaving would grant us the largest leeway in opening up some finances to build a better squad. Everyone else is on relatively low wages (still high considering their quality), but low in comparison to what we would need to pay any quality players we buy. Apart from that, many of them aren't worth much anyways. Bottom line is, and also my reasoning for not putting too much blame on Galliani, is that we need a cash injection of 40-50M, afterwards wages can be within our budget if we offload our many under par players.
Who I'm interested in though, above all, is this 'Doria' guy. Some members were talking about him in the mercato thread, and also about us having links in the past. At the time I knew nothing about him, but I did some research and I'm finding many people hailing him as the next Silva of his generation. Again, I don't get to happy when I hear stuff like that, because even not too long ago I remember hearing Brescia's president saying Salamon could be the next Baresi, lol. BUT, players like Doria are gambles we need to take for two reasons:
1) There aren't many quality defenders in circulation, the two or three at most that are out there are either untouchable or will cost us half our squad.
2) We've seen success in Silva, we've seen recent young Brazilian defenders succeed such as Marquinhos, and some of you may disagree but I think Juan Jesus from Merda is actually quite talented as well. Tactically naive but the kid possesses everything he needs to be a great defender, almost unbeatable in 1 on 1 scenarios too.