Summer Mercato
Holy cow, the board is so divided on the mercato this year. Sort of refreshing, considering we have all been in agreement as to how badly our previous few mercatos sucked, lol. Just wanted to share my two cents on some of the topics discussed here.

Cristante sale is perhaps one of the most controversial moves we have made this year, which is interesting to me, because even Balotelli sale didn't resonate as much negativity. Personally, I did not rate Cristante all that highly, and I was having a discussion about this with another poster here about it just before the sale. To me, Cristante was touted highly, partially because of his talent starved our fan base has become. We wanted a high level midfielder so badly that we looked at Cristante as the second coming of Pirlo. For the record, Cristante could turn out to be quite excellent, but to bank on a 19 year old to turn the fate our of team around is a little over-doing it.

That being said, the way he exited, and was handled were just shameful for Milan. Looking back, I guess Milan had always been lousy at bringing up youth players since Berlu took over. Yes, we had the Maldini, Baresi, Tassotti and gang class, but those guys were really the only stars our academy produced in like 30 years. Only difference was, we had the deep wallet back in the days to offset the lackluster youth academy. Can't produce a good defender? Buy Nesta! Can't produce a good midfielder? Buy Rui Costa! Can't find a good striker? Shevchenko to the rescue! Now that the funding has dried up, partially due to Berlu's cut back and partially due to Galliani being a finance idiot, our only way back to relevance again seemed to be relay on our youth academy, Galliani said as much. And yet, when we look at Cristante, the guy barely saw the field in 2, 3 years with the first team. It is one thing for young players to swallow his pride and play second bananas to Rui Costa, Seedorf, Kaka and Pirlo. But to glue him to the bench in favor of Essien, Muntari and Nocerino? That is inexcusable. I don't think Cristante is really some arrogant punk kid who thinks he should be starting every match for us. But 3 games in 3 years is really quite insulting for a young talented kid who worked hard to get playing time. Under those circumstances, his request to leave is very reasonable.

The case of Cristante is a perfect way to illustrate the problem with Milan and Italian football in general. In Italy, seniority and relationships trumps abilities and potential. The issue of young players never getting a chance over senior players no matter how much better they are has been ongoing for a long time now. If we think back, we have all had questions such as why was Seedorf always playing when he hardly ever ran on the field? Why is Bonera such an essential part of the team when all he did has been sucking since he signed with us? And yet, the only reason these players had their special treatments was because they had seniority. They had special treatments from the organization that says "don't worry about training or working hard. You are a champion, and we will never bench you!" Any company or organization that employs this kind of favoritism is doomed to fail, there can be no other way around it. When your team selects players based on who is friends with the president instead of performances, you will get unmotivated players on the field, and talented players leaving the team for better organization. Without changing this culture of favoritism, we will never be able to truly relay on our youth to bring us success.

Lastly, I wanted to share a couple of thoughts on the mercato overall. I felt like this team has improved, and considering the resources we had, Galliani did well. Now of course, we have lost a lot of talented players, but the players we brought back seem to fit with one another pretty well. It is clear that Inzaghi is going to transform this team into a defend-counter attack type of team. So speed up front with ELS and Torres will come in real handy. Bonaventura can play midfield or winger, and adds some technical element to a midfield that desperately needs some.

But to me, the real interesting thing is always the money. We had budgeted for Iturbe at one point, pending Kaka and Robinho leaving. They both left, and we were said to have 10M euros to spend. Then we sold Balotelli, and should have had some more money. But, the only transaction that we spend money on (Bonaventura) was funded by the Cristante sale. So the question is, where did the rest of the budget go? Galliani is good at getting players for free, but money always seems to disappear when he touches them. This lack of financial accountability is really starting to bother me. No organization in the world will stand for this kind of financial trickery, and it is about time Milan recognizes it too. If we had money, we had money. No CEO should make 30M euros disappear out of thin air and not be called out for it.
slifersd: Your post is amazing, and I agree with pretty much everything you said. I've been going back and forth on what I think about the mercato because I can't actually make up my mind. (and I'm posting all the time because class is boring). I'm afraid of actually feeling hopeful.

In terms of finances, this has been going on for quite some time. We've been selling players for a while now, and even the bloated wage bill doesn't explain how fast we go back into debt after these big sales. One minute he announces our budget is balanced and we're in good financial shape, the next he's moaning again about how we can't afford anybody. I'm also convinced some of the freebie transfers we've been making are not what they seem. There's got to be something shady going on in terms of agents or kickbacks or something. We certainly shouldn't be having THIS much trouble with financing transfers.

When Casa Milan first opened, I thought it was financed by the player sales, but then I found out we sold the Via Turati property. Some fans are hoping the money will eventually go towards the new stadium, but I'm becoming more and more suspicious about whether concrete plans about this new stadium will ever materialize.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/21841...to-benfica

We have sold our plan, a plan for this team for the feature. It is not about Cristante's debatable exact quality. He is a very talented player, every one must agree with that. If he could turn to very good quality or not, it is another case furthermore develop to a world class midfielder.

The problem is he is our young player coming up from youth team, he is very talented and after De Sciglio he is the one who could get into the team and play with the senior team.

Milan have Cristante not conversely. Milan could turn down the offer and even send him back to Primavera if he behaves badly. But no, 6 million is an offer Milan could not resist since they have no clue about how to get money. It is really a pain to see we lost our very talented young player. It is not about Cristante, it is about our hot prospect on which we should rely our our created strategy.

I accept and still support a team if their current and future predicted capability is for avoiding relegation but we are talking about Milan who are still big team. I can live with the fact that RIGHT NOW we are not the candidates for top three in Serie A table and pursuing only the best result might come from our current team. I fully understand that the management want to change their policy, their strategy on how to build a competitive team for Italy and Europe. However if they don't strict to the change they made, no future and no hope for our Milan.

I only hope my thoughts are fully wrong and Galliani actually see something bad from Cristante we can't see and the sale of Cristante really has all benefit to Milan especially for the new strategy management has made. Still it is very hard to think it is the real case we have.
"When Costacurta and Maldini won they didn't celebrate much. They were thinking about winning the next game" - Alessandro Nesta
It will be so funny if some team offered 5mil for Mastour and Milan sold him and stated that he wanted to leave bc he wanted first team football at age 17
(09-03-2014, 03:28 AM)Gabriel426 Wrote: It will be so funny if some team offered 5mil for Mastour and Milan sold him and stated that he wanted to leave bc he wanted first team football at age 17

Don't worry about Mastour. Proud



Not now. We will worry about that after we sell both DES and SES within two summers. Confused
aka xudong
Milan players' intentions to stay or go are all dedicated by Galliani. Over the years, I have always been impressed by Galliani's negotiation abilities. There seems to be no deal too difficult for him to close. If he really wanted to, he could have persuaded Cristante to stay, I am sure of it. Don't worry about how Cristante wanted to leave badly. He had a contract till 2018, and Galliani, who could convince Chelsea to pay Torres to play for us, could not convince Cristante to stay or accept a loan to Sassaulo? We would have to be retarded to believe that. Galliani could convince mega stars who desperately wanted to stay with us like Thiago Silva and Ibra to leave, but he couldn't get a 18 year old to stay? That doesn't even sound realistic.

The problem always revolve around money. This team has now become so money starved that they seem to be willing to do anything for even the smallest amount of money. Look at this summer alone, we had to go and buy 10 players on a negative budget. We negotiated two months for Rami, over half a million euros that was paid for by the player. We needed money so badly that we sold a bunch of 18 year olds, just to collect any money at all. The financial state of this team is beyond bad at this point, and it needs to be looked at very very carefully. I do not know why the seventh largest revenue in world soccer can be this short on cash. I mean, sure, we don't have Real or Man City money, but we can't even compete with a low level EPL team any more. With our revenue level, that is absolutely ridiculous. Money is being spent on something, and someone needs to look at our budget very very carefully to figure out where. Maybe I am over simplifying all of this, but until we resolve our financial issues, Jesus himself wouldn't be able to save this team.
I find it completely bizarre that anyone considers this mercato positive. For the slight improvements we see in some areas (1 CB and 1 Gk mainly, attack is highly debatable and arguably worse and midfield remains the same, only without Cristante and with Van Ginkel), the short term signings are surely worrying. This is how the squad will look in two years as it stands (Van Ginkel and Armero aren't included as they are only loans):

Name (age in 2016)...

Diego López (34)
Michael Agazzi (32)
Christian Abbiati (39)
Adil Rami (30)
Alex (34)
Cristian Zapata (29)
Philippe Mexès (34)
Daniele Bonera (35)
Michelangelo Albertazzi (25)
Cristian Zaccardo (35)
Mattia De Sciglio (23)
Ignazio Abate (29)
Nigel de Jong (31)
Michael Essien (33)
Riccardo Montolivo (31)
Andrea Poli (26)
Sulley Muntari (32)
Keisuke Honda (30)
Riccardo Saponara (24)
Giacomo Bonaventura (27)
Hachim Mastour (18)
Stephan El Shaarawy (23)
Jérémy Ménez (29)
Fernando Torres (32)
Giampaolo Pazzini (32)
M'Baye Niang (21)

10 players (less than half of the squad) will still be in their 20s. How many of Albertazzi, Bonaventura (who while I consider a fair signing, hasn't shown anything to suggest that he'll be able to step up at the highest level), Poli, Saponara, Niang and Mastour (who remember will still only be 18) can we really expect to step up and make a significant difference in the first team?

Meanwhile, Milan need to consider replacing most of the 30+ (16 players) group too. All 3 goalkeepers will need replacing (Diego Lopez will need competition at least), in CBs, the club only have Rami, Zapata and Albertazzi of a reasonable age to compete. In midfield, all the starters will need replacing and unless the likes of Poli and Saponara step up to show they can genuinely offer something to this group, they will need replacing too. In attack, none of the players offer any sort of guarantees (including SES who is only just returning from a season out injured).

Truth is, this situation looks strangely similar to the situation a handful of years back, where Milan relied on an ageing group of players and struggled to transition into a new generation. Difference is, back then the ageing group of players were of the highest quality and were still making CL spots every year, while this time around the group is significantly of lesser quality and are considered challengers for EL spots.

Back then Milan also had assets like Zlatan and Thiago Silva to sell to cover debts, while in two years, the only two who are likely to reach market values to sell on at a high price are SES and DES. There's also the massive, MASSIVE risk that the club don't even reach CL spots this year, meaning for those years they have no revenue from the competition to help fund the market. The selling of Cristante and the lack of opportunities afforded to most youngsters coming through to allow the likes of Essien and Muntari to play means it's probably unlikely we'll see any significant influx of youth players coming (and with the numbers required, that would be a major risk with high chances of failure in itself). So question is, Milan might appear pretty competitive now, but how does it remain competitive in the next two years?

Some might think this lack of faith is grounded in the Cristante deal (which I'm still extremely angry about), but fact is before the Balo sale I said I considered this mercato a C- or C at best. I then went on to say that I considered what Milan did after the Balo sale would determine the success of the mercato and I'm not impressed. If you don't have the resources to buy big, then you look at alternative solutions. Benfica, the club that Cristante went to and has Rui Costa (our ex-player) running the show haven't spent more that 10m on a signing in 3 years (Cristante was the second highest transfer fee they spent this summer) and the average age of their signings are always under 24 (23.7 on average). For two years running this club has reached the final of Europa League (beating out Italy's best along the way) and won the domestic title and took away Porto's dominance in the league in recent years. They only lost against Sevilla in EL last year in bizarre circumstances after dominating and realistically should have won the treble (they won the Portuguese cup). For me, that's pretty damn impressive achievement and a well run club.

I wish Pippo the best, even if I'm not impressed by his acceptance of this mercato, but I think it's going to require a minor miracle to get this club back on track in the next few years. I still watch our matches, in hope of seeing Pippo bring back some of our traditions on the pitch. However, I've often spoken about lost values in the club and until these are back from the top level management, then they're not coming back.
DeJong will be gone in Jan when ManU comes calling.
(09-03-2014, 10:25 AM)Gabriel426 Wrote: DeJong will be gone in Jan when ManU comes calling.

De Jong would have been a last minute panic buy for Manchester United if he had gone on transfer deadline day. Now they have time and I think it's more realistic that they will go for Strootman in january.

Also De Jong wants to sign a new contract with Milan:
http://www.football-italia.net/55414/rep...milan-deal

Not that it necessarily mean much...
Well, the Summer Mercato has ended, now we know our final squad so my preferred starting line-up is:

Diego Lopez
De Sciglio Rami Alex Armero
Van Ginkel De Jong Bonaventura
Menez Torres El Shaarawy

Sub: Abbiati, Abate, Zapata, Mexes, Poli, Muntari, Saponara, Honda, Niang, Pazzini

I think this is the most dynamic line-up with the mixture of young and veteran players!
Almost a totally new different line-up comparing to last year!