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Current squad - what work is needed?
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12-16-2013, 06:07 AM
I think what caused the downhill of Milan financially, beside unable to build Milan as a huge Brand like Real and Barca, is the fact that the wages for average players in Milan are too high. Milan paid Dida 8 mil before tax for 4 more seasons when they have a capable Abbiatti on the bench, who earns 6 mil. Now thats 14mil for two No.1 GK. Then there are the likes of Kaladaze, who didn't really play much but earns about 7mil a year.
 (12-15-2013, 06:27 PM)honsano Wrote: I agree with the latter point you make Dev about not having gotten here in the first place Dev. I don't know how well we can assign blame to Galliani for letting the AC Milan 'infrastructrue' collapse or never be built. We all can say that Berlusconi for sure is responsible for that aspect as he is owner and big changes have to come from him. That is why my original point is that maybe the division of power is for the best. Galliani is known to be great at transfers by all but the current Milan faithful while Barbara can help with the financial aspect to allow him the chance to land players. We spent around 38 million getting pazzini, Mesbah, silvestre, zapata, acerbi, didac villa, Urby Emanuelson and matri (Source: Taking transfermarket.co.uk with a grain of salt). This is over 3 seasons, ergo: 12.6 million per season on average. Fact: None of these players are milan quality Fact: Instead of getting us 4 subbers and 3 players who never play we could've bought two top-quality players for nearly 40 million Fact: We spent an immense amount of money on wages for these players Fact: They could've easily been replace with players from primavera Fact: Galliani's dumber than a horse's arse when it comes to money 
12-16-2013, 01:49 PM
(12-15-2013, 06:27 PM)honsano Wrote: I agree with the latter point you make Dev about not having gotten here in the first place Dev. I don't know how well we can assign blame to Galliani for letting the AC Milan 'infrastructrue' collapse or never be built. We all can say that Berlusconi for sure is responsible for that aspect as he is owner and big changes have to come from him. That is why my original point is that maybe the division of power is for the best. Galliani is known to be great at transfers by all but the current Milan faithful while Barbara can help with the financial aspect to allow him the chance to land players. I think Galliani is responsible almost as much as Berlu for us finding ourselves where we are. For years, he's been in charge of taking care of Milan and he's obviously got the pulling power to steer the club as he sees fit. The fact Allegri and Balotelli were brought in and are still here is testament to that. Berlusconi may provide a vision as to where the club is headed, but while he's been busy in politics, Galliani should have given the direction and forethought. We know Berlu listens to Galliani, so I doubt it was a case Galliani couldn't have done it. I've gone into transfer figures in the Winter Mercato thread before (please do see my posts there if you get the chance) and we could be here all day arguing about the level of spending, although I'm sure we can both agree hasn't always been wise even when we have spent. The one thing I'll say though is transfers are only part of the cost and other factors (e.g. contracts) cannot be ignored. However, my problem comes with how we spend, whether it be contracts or players signed. For example, I don't believe even Ibra and Robinho were necessarily good investments, even if thanks to their help we won a scudetto. In Ibra's case we may have almost broke even on his buying and selling transfer fees, but his salary alone has cost us a fortune, dwarfing the transfer fees. 
12-16-2013, 04:39 PM
(12-16-2013, 09:16 AM)mathiask Wrote: We spent around 38 million getting pazzini, Mesbah, silvestre, zapata, acerbi, didac villa, Urby Emanuelson and matri (Source: Taking transfermarket.co.uk with a grain of salt). This is over 3 seasons, ergo: 12.6 million per season on average.
aka xudong
12-16-2013, 05:53 PM
(12-16-2013, 04:39 PM)xudong Wrote:(12-16-2013, 09:16 AM)mathiask Wrote: We spent around 38 million getting pazzini, Mesbah, silvestre, zapata, acerbi, didac villa, Urby Emanuelson and matri (Source: Taking transfermarket.co.uk with a grain of salt). This is over 3 seasons, ergo: 12.6 million per season on average. I like Urby, but he wouldn't even be chosen over a primavera player in the 2006-2007 season in all honesty. I don't mind pazzo either. I just don't like him 7m + cassano (what; 15-17 million in total). I don't like cassano, but i would've rather sold cassano and not bought pazzo 
12-16-2013, 10:49 PM
(12-16-2013, 01:49 PM)ACMILAN1983 Wrote:(12-15-2013, 06:27 PM)honsano Wrote: I agree with the latter point you make Dev about not having gotten here in the first place Dev. I don't know how well we can assign blame to Galliani for letting the AC Milan 'infrastructrue' collapse or never be built. We all can say that Berlusconi for sure is responsible for that aspect as he is owner and big changes have to come from him. That is why my original point is that maybe the division of power is for the best. Galliani is known to be great at transfers by all but the current Milan faithful while Barbara can help with the financial aspect to allow him the chance to land players. Would you expect to get a player like Ibra on lower wages?
12-17-2013, 01:08 PM
No, but I think we should have had the foresight and understanding that if we signed him at that money, it would negatively impact other areas, which it did. We need to be realistic and the harsh reality is we're not a club that can sign Ibra, Ronaldo and Messi, so therefore must have a different approach to building great sides rather than signing the most expensive in the world.
I want to say I don't want to sound like I had thought of all this when we signed Ibra, but at the same time I don't earn millions to make these decisions.
I agree with what you are saying that we can't sign those players but don't forget those are the players that got us a scudetto recently and almost a second. The question becomes are we still a big club even though we can't buy big players? To me a big club has the financial capability of buying big players OR at the least holding on to players no matter the wage demand (silva, ibra, kaka). There aren't a whole lot of clubs out there like that.
If we are truly going for a Borussia D. paradigm (produce talent and buy raw talent and eventually sell to the highest bidder) rather than a Barcelona pardigm (complement home grown talent with purchased big name talent and only sell if a player is completely unecessary) then this Milan team isn't one that can consistently challenge for top spots in europe or domestically like Barca. That is basically my point. Our expectations of Galliani should be reduced. Don't expect milan of 2013 to be milan of 2003. The mentality throughout the club is different now and it is a financial thing not only because poor transfers.
12-19-2013, 11:05 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-19-2013, 02:10 PM by ACMILAN1983.)
We're a big club and that doesn't change overnight, but we do have financial problems. Personally, my issue with Galliani isn't that I expect us to buy guys like Ibra and yet somehow be financially sound, but rather that he insists on trying to act like we're a big club buying champions that we can't afford. My problem isn't I want Milan of 2003 in 2013, it's I want Galliani to acknowledge that and change his approach to building sides, rather than signing odd "gifts" which ultimately cost us. It's not just that, but the fact that we have a hugely bloated squad which is extremely expensive to maintain and have failed for 3 years to trim it. As for guys like Ibra getting us a scudetto, he did but it was shortsighted and personally I'd rather we build to long term stability than short term success that's not sustainable.
Rather than specifically looking at the Dortmund or Barcelona paradigm (though we should use all of these to find our own approach), my view is we need to look at the way Juve have recovered from Calciopoli and learn from that. While they've made mistakes and have been far from perfect, they rebuilt by losing all their stars, created a side based on good, solid players who could keep the club relatively strong and added some stars to that side incrementally. Initially this began with their sole star man Buffon and they added Pirlo when the opportunity came. However, that, along with Conte joining, gave them enough impetus to win a scudetto which allowed them to take another step by adding Tevez and Llorente. Add some intelligent signings to the mix like Vidal (exemplary signing), Pogba, Asamoah, Bonucci, Barzagli and Ogbonna and you have a very strong side that's extremely dominant in Italy. They've under performed in Europe, but anyone who sees them regularly knows this isn't due to them being of poor quality. On our part, we need to rebuild incrementally with a view to covering ourselves should things not completely work out. We've actually got finances to afford a couple of stars already, like Balotelli and Kaka because unlike Juve we didn't have to start from Serie B and have been playing CL football, but we need to ensure we don't overspend on them, giving them salaries on par with the best in the world, which is my issue with Ibra and Robinho etc. Having a couple of stars is pointless too if there's no solid backbone to our side, which again we don't have. The irony is I think we could have this, as we have some good players, if we just make some smart decisions in the mercato and build with a single objective in mind. Imo, we should be building around a young group, with a minimum of a 5 year plan in mind. Ultimately, we need to build a side that can compete in Serie A, which is possible on a relatively modest budget given the competition and state of other clubs. In addition to this, we need to look to perform regularly in CL football. While we do this in the sporting sector, in the business sector we need to make significant progress in increasing revenue streams, notably making progress in getting our own stadium. Doing this, we can plan a few years in advance and ultimately, if things work out we'll have the budget to keep these players even if their salaries increase. In the worst case scenarios we have young talents who are assets we can sell on and buy replacements for to maintain the status quo from a sporting standpoint, giving time to the business to reach a point where it needs to be to aim for higher goals. This ties back to the various debates I've had in recent months to our buying policies and changes in management. For example, I've debated with WCMilan about buying Jorginho and not Hernanes. This is because Jorginho is a player to potentially build for the long term around, or at the very least will be a valuable asset to sell on in a few years, unlike Hernanes. Key to this idea succeeding is making sure we're strict on buying policies, only bringing in targets who meet certain requirements, but also minimalising risks when buying. In recent years, the number of high risk transfers we've had has been damaging and this needs to stop. I've also extensively discussed bringing back Maldini to direct the culture and philosophy of play in the club. While manager's ultimately make the decisions on lineups and tactics, they are usually short term and therefore it's difficult to build long term projects and squads around them. Maldini would ultimately represent the long term sporting project of the club, having a hand in choosing managers who will fit into the overall ethos of his sporting direction. Fundamentally, what I'm saying is we shouldn't be looking to see how we'll maintain competitiveness in a short period of time, but instead need to look at the long term project of the club towards returning to the top based on solid foundations and principals.
12-27-2013, 04:24 PM
As the forum is pretty dead of late and there's little to talk about other than Nainggolan, I thought it would be interesting to hear what people wanted to happen to our squad. Essentially, my question is what do you want the squad to be for the start of next season (so this mercato and summer)?
I would like us to be realistic, factoring in a few things when making your choices: - This is not a question to ask you what your fantasy squad is (we happen to have a thread for that anyway). We simply can't afford or get Ronaldo or Messi etc., so really please don't suggest players who simply won't come. - A realistic squad size is somewhere between 24-30 players. Obviously we can say we want 100 players, but that'll never happen. - Please be realistic with money. While it's nice to say we want 10 new players all of who will cost 10-20m, it's very unlikely we'll spend 100-200m in a couple of mercatos. Personally, I think the best way to look at it is we've been looking to spend up to about 20m on first team squad players in recent mercatos. Therefore, this may be a rough budget for the next couple, although we will almost certainly miss out on CL next season, so I'd factor this in, lowering the budget for the next 2 mercatos to be roughly 10-15m (it's not much). Bear in mind that this rough figure doesn't account for player salaries and sales. Essentially, if you reduce the squad size, we should be saving on money in salaries, which can be put towards new players (or at least a part of it as we still have to pay new players). In addition to this, sale of players will also bring in money to contribute to buying new ones. Ultimately, let's be realistic and sensible. Also, given most here want Allegri gone, feel free to give your choice of a new coach too. Obviously the more detail you are willing to provide the more interesting the read, but even if you just want to say your ideas for the squad for next season, I'm keen to see people's ideas. I will contribute myself later when I get more time (and responses  ).
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Let's face it, it has become much better now. Around 2005-09, no player on our roster gets paid in six-figure salary. Useless players like Valerio Fiori who received 10m+ net income and a JD degree over his 9-season tenure in Milan with one Serie A match played, or Digao who also got paid 1M per year just to keep Kaka and their father happy.