(09-03-2014, 07:27 PM)nefremo Wrote: I am not comparing us with Barca and Man U. I am just giving an example of how they lost two of the world's bigget young stars because of the same reasons that we just lost Cristante. The fact that they can buy a superstar in that postition and we can't is a different matter.....but the concept is the same. Cristante wanted more playing time and he wasn't going to get as much as he wanted here because there are better players here then him RIGHT NOW. It was the same with Alcantara and Pogba at Man U at that time. Difference is they had world class players taking those guys's minutes and we have Muntari (just as an example) taking Cristante's minutes. Regardless, no coach in the world will sit the better player on the bench just to play the youngster. IT WON'T happen, unless it is in football manager where you can just restart the game. The youngster will get his minutes to develop (so was Cristante), but if they are not happy with that and they want more, then what do you do? We didn't just throw Cristante to the curb, we tried to reason with him.....but he chose something else and that's all there is to it. Now we have to look at what we got in our squad and move forward with it.
Fundamentally I think this where the two of us disagree. You think he's not good enough whereas I think we don't have any other midfielders at the moment with the qualities that he possesses. You don't think we've seen enough of him..but I think his first team appearances + Youth CL + Viareggio + friendlies were sufficient for me to see the talent he possesses and how we could immediately use his skills.
As for "what to do", I'd say not keeping Essien and not taking Chelsea's talent on loan to develop for them would be a good place to start.
I do agree that we have to move forward with what we got..but if we didn't discuss "what could have been" then the Internet wouldn't be such a fun place
Siamo a posto cosi.
lets face it, the real reason we sold cristante is because for us to focus on youth we need to concede we may not make the CL this season, and we won't win the league for 3-4 seasons. Berlusconi is 77, Galliani is 70, they both know this is the twilight of their era at AC milan, the future doesn't matter, bonaventura may be more reliable than cristante this season, so may van ginkel and bianaby.
They desperately want milan in the CL because it means they make money now and possibly get to have one last little "look at us and what we did for this club" moment before they have to give up their duties and someone else will get the credit. Mind you, in saying that why berlusconi wants to to hoard all his money I don't know. I suppose what I said might be total rubbish as he's the sort of person that believes he'll live forever.
(09-03-2014, 04:21 PM)nefremo Wrote: Dev, you are one of the posters that I respect the most...but you are in full blown panic mode now and blowing many things out of proportion.
I can easily take your post and make it positive by changing a few details in there which you assumed MIGHT happen in the future. Bonaventura has done nothing to show he can get to the next level, but Cristante has? Please let's not use the amount of money other teams pay for our players as a measuring tool.
I agree that a few years ago we had older players that put us in the CL and now we have older players that don't guarantee that.....but we also had to pay wages out of our ass to have those players and that screwed us big time that we eventually had to sell them to cover our debts (Berlu won't do it anymore). Now we have players that don't offer guarantees of CL, but the wage bill and expenses are so low that if we don't get into the CL we won't have to sell anyone we don't want to. So not having a Silva to sell for 50mil becomes a little less of an issue. It doesn't mean that we won't sell someone next year, but it also doesn't mean we won't get into the CL just because we don't have a Silva.
I consider this mercato a good one because for the first time in years I think that we have moved towards being self-sufficient. At the same time we didn't give out any crazy contracts and lowered the wage bill. All while I truly think that we improved our squad, not only over last year's team but also the previous one too where we finished 3rd. I think we will see a change of direction now especially if we make it to the CL, which we have a real shot at doing. This team is built to break even without CL money. If we do make it into the CL, then that's extra funds. I know we always say "next year, next mercato, on and on" and we have grown tired of it, but I truly for the first time feel like this summer paved the road towards being able to do something in the market and being self-sufficient.
Galliani did a good job with what he was allowed to do. Berlu is the one (or should I say Fininvest) that won't allow Milan to spend, that's evident. They don't want Milan to go in the red as they don't want to cover the debts any longer.
So all in all, it was a good mercato keeping in mind what happened and knowing the background story of our problems. Yes we lost Cristante, but it happens. It is what it is. Manchester lost Pogba for the same reasons, Barcelona lost Alcantara for the same reasons, etc, etc. This is the way it goes. I don't know which values that were lost you are talking about, because it has always been the same. Only that in the past we didn't have to sell players because of our financial position. But Milan has not been a team to develop youngsters for 25 years. If there was a really talented one like Maldini for example, we just kept them because we could. About the lies and all the drama with Galliani and Berlusconi...it's always been the same.
Thanks that respect is very much mutual.
However, I will say I'm not in panic at all and refuse to accept being told I am. I've been seeing this same problem for a long time and said when the club sold Thiago Silva two years ago that the sale will not lead to a sustainable future. We're now missing out on CL and are taking huge risks in trying to achieve 3rd place this year, stuff that I said was the risk back then. This happens to be the same future that Barbara outlined in her dossier when Thiago Silva was sold and she said it publicly. Here's what I'm talking about:
http://www.football-italia.net/20110/mil...va-dossier
The forecast and risks outlined in the article fits pretty well with what we're seeing in the club right?
Also I want to clarify that Cristante isn't a player who's suddenly going to help us get 3rd place on his own. I made this point in my previous post too, where I said that this mercato never impressed me and a lot depended on what happened after the Balo sale. What happened after, such as buying Torres, failing to get the winger Pippo needed and getting Van Ginkel on a dry loan isn't progress. Selling Cristante is a problem, but is more about selling a key symbol in the real hope Milan has for the future in it's youth. You can say he's not better than the options we have, but outside Montolivo and De Jong, I think every midfielder we had was inferior to Cristante and that was evident this summer.
Staying on Cristante, I want to say I've been following the kid for around 3 years, since he made his CL debut. I also want to say that I wasn't impressed by him when I initially saw him, not understanding why Allegri chose him at such a young age. It's his performances and growth in the following period that won me over and made me believe we had a potential star in our ranks. This isn't about me wanting him to succeed so bad that I overlook the weaknesses, it is about a player who initially failed to impress me, but has turned my opinion on him with his performances on the pitch.
Getting to the mercato you talk in detail about finances. Here's the thing, we keep getting told that the club's breaking even, that costs are reduced every year and yet pretty much nothing is spent every year and apparently Berlu still covers debt every year. Something there just doesn't add up if you ask me.
That aside, breaking even isn't enough. Some investment for longer term plans are needed, yet where is this coming from? By breaking even and no investment, the best anyone can expect is the continued selling of assets (which are diminishing due to poor replacements) and freebies. We've not put in place any real infrastructure to build from.
About values, I'm talking about the professional attitude, respect and close relationship towards players and fans and a strong work ethic where stars may be in the side, but are never bigger than the side or system they play in. These are just some key values I talk about. Now quite frankly the way the management and players generally act in recent years isn't professional and is rather shameful, whilst the treatment of some players (like Maldini and Pirlo) and the constant lying to fans is anything but respectful. Finally, I would say from the period we brought in Ronaldinho, we lost fundamentally a key part of our identity, as until that point even if Berlusconi splashed out on star players, we had people in the club that made sure those stars were integrated into a bigger system. That was lost when we focused on the big marketable names and less on the sport. Perhaps this is one area Pippo will improve, but he can only do so much with mediocre and ageing players (who haven't been brought together with any system in mind) at his disposal.
09-03-2014, 10:42 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-03-2014, 10:46 PM by nefremo.)
Fair enough. Sorry for saying you are in panic mode, perhaps I used the wrong wording there. It all came from your post a couple of days ago when you said you won't post here much and that you are losing interest in the club. I would hate for that that to happen.
About Cristante, I think I'll be beating a dead horse if I keep talking about it. Thing is that you might be right, but I just don't see it as such a tragic thing.
I completely agree on the values you talked about and thanks for clarifying that. The lying has been going on for as long as I can remember so I don't know why that would change your perspective after all these years. It gets old, you are right, and it's plain simple disrespectful. But Berly was an egotistical maniac 20 years ago and is today too. Some of those principals were also lost when we started gathering dirt bags and troublemakers like Cassano and Balotelli....but again, it looks like we've made a step away from that this year. If we go by what we've seen so far then Pippo is definitely trying to go back to those values and principals that we used to see at Milan. That's why I say that this summer has been an indication to me that we may be going back to those days, at least in the way that we value the collective and what players need to do on and off the field in order to wear the Milan jersey.
I may join your opinion after next summer, but right now I feel like we've taken a step forward.
I hope you still share your passion with us here and that you still come to discuss Milan with us. Give it some time and see how this works out. I actually anticipate for us to have a good year and move forward from here.
I can't believe people are calling this a good mercato?! Aside from over the hill Alex, virtually every player signed wasn't wanted by their club. Clubs were desperate to offload Lopez, Armero, Rami, Torres and even Van Ginkel. On top of this, Galliani managed to sell 2 ITALIAN potentially world class young players way below market value signalling the end of the 'youth project'.
Even his player disposals were pathetic. He couldn't permanently shift Noce, Birsa and Matri and gave away Robinho virtually for free representing a huge loss. He failed to reduce our squad size to under 25 as promised resulting in benchwarmers like Mexes, Essien bleeding us dry all season. To add insult to injury he renewed fodders like Muntari who's annual gross salary is covered by Cristante's transfer fee. Finally, he sold our other youth prospect Paloschi for a measly 3m. This' a guy who scored 1 less league goal than Balotelli last season playing for shitty Chievo!
Face it Galliani is an absolute disaster. I solely blame Berlusconi for rejecting his resignation last October. If he'd gone we wouldn't have signed Essien and Balotelli and Cristante would still be here.
(09-03-2014, 07:27 PM)nefremo Wrote: I am not comparing us with Barca and Man U. I am just giving an example of how they lost two of the world's bigget young stars because of the same reasons that we just lost Cristante. The fact that they can buy a superstar in that postition and we can't is a different matter.....but the concept is the same. Cristante wanted more playing time and he wasn't going to get as much as he wanted here because there are better players here then him RIGHT NOW. It was the same with Alcantara and Pogba at Man U at that time. Difference is they had world class players taking those guys's minutes and we have Muntari (just as an example) taking Cristante's minutes. Regardless, no coach in the world will sit the better player on the bench just to play the youngster. IT WON'T happen, unless it is in football manager where you can just restart the game. The youngster will get his minutes to develop (so was Cristante), but if they are not happy with that and they want more, then what do you do? We didn't just throw Cristante to the curb, we tried to reason with him.....but he chose something else and that's all there is to it. Now we have to look at what we got in our squad and move forward with it.
Your comparison is only a thing with a thing, a reason Cristante left with other young talented players of other club left the clubs. You did not related Cristante's move with how we are now: our current situation of the quality and competitiveness in in league situation and most important thing our plan and strategy.
All other players you mentioned have arguable better players if not much better ones to compete with (world class and established players). If they want to play they need to compete with not only one world class player, both from experience and recognized qualities. With Cristante we can see he lacked of experience not the qualities. Most quality we have as creative midfielder is only Montolivo. The more important thing the team have great quality that loosing such one very talented player won't impact them much or Alcantras' present to the team would probably not bring different story since Barca has players (much) better than him.
Barca's situation of competitiveness is completely different with Milan. Barca were a READY team, they have target to win all competitions that they follow in this world. They are in the situation like us five or more years ago where in paper no unnecessary mistake is allowed that could prevent them to achieve their target, mistakes that young players normally make. RIGHT NOW we are not as competitive as Barca. Our (ideal target) was top three and we all know this target is from the perspective of management not the view of our quality compared to other Serie A teams. We are aiming the best results we can get because we ARE BUILDING a team now, not having a team ready to win the league. This should mean we have more room and space for mistakes, minutes and games for young players (the best one we have) to get game experience while not forgetting that we are also aiming something important.
The most different and important thing about Cristante's sale is related to our plan and strategy. We have set our strategy in how to build a quality and competitive team which is different with what we did in the past. We are not buying world class players we are buying talented and very talented players who might become world class players, at least good quality ones. We are making a player who will be ready to play with quality both in Serie A and Europe. We have changed our plan and strategy in how to build a competitive team. Cristante is the best young player after De S we have now that are ready to play with senior team. We have not yet do anything to follow our new strategy but conversely we are denying what we have set for the future of this team. We have sold our policy. This is actually the real issue, not if it is about Cristante or other name.
Like I said in my other post, what will this team turn to be if they finish top three? Let's face it, this team is not competitive and like other said, the players are getting old and we have not prepared to substitute some of them with our best youth products. Realistically in paper the future of this team is targeting top three every year. Except we focus in our youth aka giving our best young players chance so that he could turn to much better player or we buy established quality player which the last is right now impossible to think about it could happen. And how could it be if we do not get CL spot? It could turn worse.
I am with other fans who lost their interest for this club due to no future for this team. What left is only Inzaghi's motivation and spirit that could attract me to follow his team, not AC Milan.
"When Costacurta and Maldini won they didn't celebrate much. They were thinking about winning the next game" - Alessandro Nesta
09-04-2014, 05:32 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-04-2014, 05:48 AM by Lilly.)
One thing that's been worrying me about our club is the frequent turnover in players, and judging by this mercato, that's unlikely to change. So many random players have come to and left Milan in the last few years that I'm starting to lose track of who's played with who and who was here in which season. I mean, we've got guys like Sokratis, Onyewu, Silvestre and Didac Vila who came here to hang out a bit, play a random game or two, go on a few random loan spells and were generally nothing but huge wastes of money/time. It takes a while for a specific group of players to gel and start getting positive results, and that's impossible with the way we've been carrying on. In three years, we'll need to think about replacing Torres, Pazzini, De Jong, Montolivo, Alex, Lopez, and Zapata. Rami, Honda and Abate will be getting up there in terms of age too. Van Ginkel will be gone, and I'm not sure if Armero will stay. I'm not sure if both DES & SES will be around, and Niang's finishing has hardly improved. If we are relying on youth to build a winning team, then our academy players who are currently in their late teens/early 20s need to be already showing signs of being on the cusp of world-class. We had one kid who was showing flashes of being Serie A ready at 19(Cristante), and he's gone. Most of the other guys who are his age also got sold. We clearly won't be buying world-class players to replace the guys I was talking about, so what are we going to do? Just wait around and hope we can somehow build a decent squad out of Diego Lopez-esque freebies? We were in that situation just recently, and we'll end up in the exact same spot in such a short time. This mercato has certainly brought us immediate/temporary improvements, but there's very little foresight and long-term project building.
Some people are saying that Galliani did a GOOD job with the resources he had at his disposal. Let's put aside the fact that he's the reason for our financial troubles to begin with and see what other club executives have accomplished with comparable resources:
- Hummels: €4million
- Lewandowski: €4.5 million
- Reus: €17.1million (cheaper than Balotelli, lolol)
- Sahin: €7 million
- Gotze and Durm: free
- Coman: free
- Pogba: free
- Arturo Vidal: €12.5million (cheaper than SES)
- Diego Costa: €1million
We certainly don't have to spend big to put together a very competitive team that can win titles for quite a few years and make us tons of money through transfers. These are the sorts of deals a capable executive should be making on a regular basis. Smart clubs buy players who are cheap because they are diamonds-in-the-rough whereas so many of Galliani's purchases are cheap because they actually are worth nothing. Galliani didn't have any big brain-farts this summer by his standards and tried to do things that are more or less logical/sane. He did a good job compared to the disaster of last year and I'm trying my best to go the "glass half full" route but let's not kid ourselves into thinking his level of performance is anywhere near satisfactory. As a Milan fan, I think our club deserves better than what Galliani has been able to produce.
let me say this all the things about cristante and galliani
1st is we will surely miss cristante
2nd galliani did a fine job at the mercato, not good but just fine.
3rd is we will need the youngsters to step up and take the position from the older player if not than i dont see this milan have a future
4th if we keep going with this cheap, old, short transfer strategies we wouldn't have a future
(09-04-2014, 06:03 AM)sylrus Wrote: let me say this all the things about cristante and galliani
1st is we will surely miss cristante
2nd galliani did a fine job at the mercato, not good but just fine.
3rd is we will need the youngsters to step up and take the position from the older player if not than i dont see this milan have a future
4th if we keep going with this cheap, old, short transfer strategies we wouldn't have a future
I almost agree with all you said mas bro except the second point.
I agree, if point 3 does not exist, we won't have future except we have money to buy real quality players (which we don't).
"When Costacurta and Maldini won they didn't celebrate much. They were thinking about winning the next game" - Alessandro Nesta
(09-03-2014, 10:42 PM)nefremo Wrote: Fair enough. Sorry for saying you are in panic mode, perhaps I used the wrong wording there. It all came from your post a couple of days ago when you said you won't post here much and that you are losing interest in the club. I would hate for that that to happen.
About Cristante, I think I'll be beating a dead horse if I keep talking about it. Thing is that you might be right, but I just don't see it as such a tragic thing.
I completely agree on the values you talked about and thanks for clarifying that. The lying has been going on for as long as I can remember so I don't know why that would change your perspective after all these years. It gets old, you are right, and it's plain simple disrespectful. But Berly was an egotistical maniac 20 years ago and is today too. Some of those principals were also lost when we started gathering dirt bags and troublemakers like Cassano and Balotelli....but again, it looks like we've made a step away from that this year. If we go by what we've seen so far then Pippo is definitely trying to go back to those values and principals that we used to see at Milan. That's why I say that this summer has been an indication to me that we may be going back to those days, at least in the way that we value the collective and what players need to do on and off the field in order to wear the Milan jersey.
I may join your opinion after next summer, but right now I feel like we've taken a step forward.
I hope you still share your passion with us here and that you still come to discuss Milan with us. Give it some time and see how this works out. I actually anticipate for us to have a good year and move forward from here.
No need to apologise, I didn't take it badly (I've known you long enough to know it wasn't intended as an insult). Point is, when I wrote my posts, including that one from three days ago, I meant every word. Note I said I won't post as much, not that I'll stop posting altogether. Normally, I would respond to all of the posts after yours, but simply put I have neither the time nor motivation to do so (I generally agree with the points made though). Also note that in my posts yesterday I deliberately refer to Milan as "the club" or by name, rather than saying "we", which is how I've often referred to the club in the past. I don't identify with the club as it is and while this might seem petty, I don't intend to support a club I can't identify with and acts in conflict with my principles. As I said a few days ago, I don't intend to stop following the club, I do wish Pippo the best too, but I don't actively support the direction and culture currently in the club, which feels alien to me.
We'll see on Cristante. I believe a lot in the player, but like I say, it's more about what he represented that bothers me than specifically the individual. I don't think I'm alone in this feeling.
About the lying. Silvio's been a person that's caused many inner conflicts for me over the years. Difference for me is that 20 years ago, if Silvio said that Milan was taking a certain direction, he would normally back it up with action. Now he says one thing, yet the action directly contradicts what he says. Then there's people like Galliani, who in the past was in the media eye, but was known as a professional in his role. Now he's nothing but a sad parody of bad stereotypes, who's most recently coined this "condor" term to describe himself. Whilst in the past this was a club that was known for innovation and fresh ideas, it's become a place of stagnation that's nothing less than a media whore where every minute event is made into a circus. Again, Milan used to be the example of professionalism and class for other clubs to follow, yet considering that was once the case seems laughable today.
A lot of my issues above aren't just with Milan either, I feel they're applicable to Italian football on the whole.
Simple question, open to anyone with answers. Yesterday I posted what I think is a very important point about the age of this group of players. In two years, less than half of this squad will be under 30 and almost a third will be into their mid 30s. The chances of all of those "young" players having a status of being important players is very slim, not just because a lot of them have yet to show they can grow to the expected level, but also that experience and history generally shows that getting 100% success in developing players is next to impossible. Knowing the financial situation and the direction and management seen in the past few years, how does the club rebuild towards a competitive future?
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