06-25-2015, 02:05 PM
I'm neither here nor there on the Witsel transfer, seems like it could go either way. For 30m, it's a little high, but I guess within reason, though I still don't see him being particularly special (I hope Mathias is right about him though).
I don't know about you guys, but the prices I'm seeing in the press seem to be completely insane. Some places say that Witsel could be bought for 40-45m (if not more), Higuain at 60m and Laporte, who looks good, for 42m. Honestly, not one of those players is worth even close to the numbers being mentioned. I understand if the club wants to buy they'll have to be prepared to overspend, but honestly these figures are nothing short of madness.
I'm assuming your response is related (though no restricted to) to my post about youth development. However, you may have missed my point. When I mentioned buying young players, it was in consideration for long term planning, but by all means I encourage short term investment to help them team get back to being competitive, which is why I advocate buying the likes of Cavani, Witsel and Bertolacci and want guys like Allan and perhaps guys like N'Koulou. Unfortunately, barring potentially a big name striker (e.g. Ibra or Cavani), it seems unlikely we'll be able to get names to be a marketing force like Real. Let's be honest, when names with less star power reject you (Kondogbia and Martinez), that approach simply isn't going to work. Frankly, I don't want that either, I would much rather see a strong sporting project as success will breed interest and support, as has clearly been the case at Barca and Bayern.
On development of young talent and the horrible job done at the club, it's something Milanista87 has also commented on recently. However, it's something the club MUST improve on and if the club has ambitions to be at the top. It isn't a case of "we're not good at this so it's not a focus for us", but "we're crap at this, we need to get better to realistically have hope of long term success". It's something they need to focus on, partly because it's extremely difficult and high risk to rely on purchasing top level players and realistically the club will fall foul of numerous rules in Italy and Europe if they don't develop homegrown players.
The first is breaching UEFA's homegrown quotas for European competition, the other is FFP, as we've seen this summer inflation in the market is rampant and no club barring a few can afford spending such huge sums every summer. Youth development, if done properly, is the most cost effective and reliable method to maintain long term competitiveness. That requires investment in young players, but it doesn't necessarily have to be Rabiot and Gabriel Barbosa, who I assume would come with a hefty fee. It's more feasible and realistic to invest at younger age groups, as we did with Mastour for example. Even then, if clubs invest wisely when spending on young talents, it isn't too high risk. Let's face it, everyone knew Verratti's quality before he went to PSG and that kid went from being a 10-15m investment to now an asset that's worth over 50m, and he's still got 10 years at the top left ahead of him.
I don't know about you guys, but the prices I'm seeing in the press seem to be completely insane. Some places say that Witsel could be bought for 40-45m (if not more), Higuain at 60m and Laporte, who looks good, for 42m. Honestly, not one of those players is worth even close to the numbers being mentioned. I understand if the club wants to buy they'll have to be prepared to overspend, but honestly these figures are nothing short of madness.
(06-24-2015, 07:30 PM)slifersd Wrote: Rumor of the day that got me excited, we are looking at Laporte from Bilbao Athletic for defense. Holy crap, this guy is like one of the biggest defensive talents in Europe right now with all the big teams looking closely at him. I would trade both JM and Kondogbia for him, that's how talented this guy is and can be.
Read some good posts on the direction of the club and wanted to share my two cents on this. While I full-heartedly agree with the notion that a team built from the ground up with young people that have bright future is the absolute best strategy, that strategy really doesn't work for this Milan for a few reasons.
First reason is money. The team, as we all know, is now bleeding cash. Our new minority owners have mysterious backings, but we do not really know what their plan for the team actually is. As a result, the level of investment they will pump into the team is a difficult thing to predict. We might look at our 150M budget this year and think "we have a lot of money". But there is absolutely no sure thing that we could get anywhere near that kind of investment in the near future. What that means is, we need to figure out a way to become self sustaining quickly, and the first step to that is making CL to increase revenue. Young players are fantastic to have, but unfortunately they will take time to develop. By the time they developed into champions, our team could be knee deep in financial trouble again and have to sell all available assets for cash. Star players can deliver results quickly and are great for marketing. Real hasn't really won much for years, but they are a marketing and money making juggernaut because of all of their star power. And to me, that is the model that we are really imitating. A jolt of cash can quickly elevate us into elite level and make us more financially stable and attractive to market. Man City was a team nobody even remember existed until they got cash injection and all of a sudden became a major club.
Second reason is development. As many also know, we are absolutely horrendous at developing young players. Pretty much every single young talent we have had in the last 10 years have turned out to be either crap or shinned after going somewhere else. With the amount of money we are losing out every year not going to CL, management cannot take the risk of striking out on another batch of young guys any more.
Last reason is competition. While it might look like a daunting task for a 10th place team to make CL within one year, Serie A is such a wide open case that it could actually happen. I mean, look at Lazio, with the players they had, they almost finished second last year. It's the weakness of the competition giving management the desire to just load up and quickly rise through the ranks instead of being patient and waiting for internal development to take place. Not saying their strategy will definitely work, but it is not as impossible as we all seem to think either.
I'm assuming your response is related (though no restricted to) to my post about youth development. However, you may have missed my point. When I mentioned buying young players, it was in consideration for long term planning, but by all means I encourage short term investment to help them team get back to being competitive, which is why I advocate buying the likes of Cavani, Witsel and Bertolacci and want guys like Allan and perhaps guys like N'Koulou. Unfortunately, barring potentially a big name striker (e.g. Ibra or Cavani), it seems unlikely we'll be able to get names to be a marketing force like Real. Let's be honest, when names with less star power reject you (Kondogbia and Martinez), that approach simply isn't going to work. Frankly, I don't want that either, I would much rather see a strong sporting project as success will breed interest and support, as has clearly been the case at Barca and Bayern.
On development of young talent and the horrible job done at the club, it's something Milanista87 has also commented on recently. However, it's something the club MUST improve on and if the club has ambitions to be at the top. It isn't a case of "we're not good at this so it's not a focus for us", but "we're crap at this, we need to get better to realistically have hope of long term success". It's something they need to focus on, partly because it's extremely difficult and high risk to rely on purchasing top level players and realistically the club will fall foul of numerous rules in Italy and Europe if they don't develop homegrown players.
The first is breaching UEFA's homegrown quotas for European competition, the other is FFP, as we've seen this summer inflation in the market is rampant and no club barring a few can afford spending such huge sums every summer. Youth development, if done properly, is the most cost effective and reliable method to maintain long term competitiveness. That requires investment in young players, but it doesn't necessarily have to be Rabiot and Gabriel Barbosa, who I assume would come with a hefty fee. It's more feasible and realistic to invest at younger age groups, as we did with Mastour for example. Even then, if clubs invest wisely when spending on young talents, it isn't too high risk. Let's face it, everyone knew Verratti's quality before he went to PSG and that kid went from being a 10-15m investment to now an asset that's worth over 50m, and he's still got 10 years at the top left ahead of him.