AC Milan Forums - Unofficial

I now only hope that we can cash in on Adriano. He was already "sold" so I am afraid that his heart is no longer here. With Menez close to return, I don't think we should hold on to him.

With as many attackers as we have, Adriano is expendable. Problem is that apparently the teams interested won't hand us a lot of cash (if any) as most of them want him on loan. (Talk of Wolfsburg) I did read something that said he may still go China as their window is open until mid-February.

I don't expect for anything to happen tomorrow......even with De Jong and Nocerino gone. We didn't receive any money for them and on top of that, there is no need to replace players that never played with others that will never play. What we need to do is replace a couple of our starters, not our bench players.

Like most here, I'm more scared of Galliani making a stupid signing from Genoa at the last minute.

true, we'd better sign no one than signing more average players. Lets hold the money for this summer and buy 1 or 2 good / very good players.

Something i do find weird, at one point, it was said we were trying to get rid of Cerci, De Jong and Noc in order to fund purchase of someone (El Ghazi, or a midfielder). And now, those guys are gone, and the money is not being spent any more. That is usually not a problem for teams, because the money will simply roll over to next year, but at Milan, budgets are always allocated on annual bases, and have no continuity. What we don't spend, we basically loses. I am not advocating us signing someone for the sake of signing someone, but it's just another example of how messy our budget planning process is.

(02-01-2016, 08:42 AM)Beppe Wrote: [ -> ]true, we'd better sign no one than signing more average players. Lets hold the money for this summer and buy 1 or 2 good / very good players.

1. Not sure if we will spend the money,
2. Not sure if Gali knows definition of good/very good players


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(01-31-2016, 05:27 PM)Ace Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry Jay, that wasn't completely my point..

Statistically speaking, ELS spent around 20 months out of those 37 either injured or we were on summer break.

in his breakthrough season(2012-2013), he scored 15 goals in the first half.. then came Balotelli and we all know what happened then.(its a whole different discussion if he's low on confidence or if it's Balotelli's effect)

come 2013/2014, albeit he started slowly but he was regaining his form only to get injured. that season he made 6 appearances.
next season he made only 19 appearances also affected by injuries. made a comeback towards the end of the season to give a huge boost to our attack and scored a brace against Torino.
come this season, we decide he's surplus to requirements only to go looking for a modern day winger next transfer window which we still don't posses nor did we even try to buy.

Not to mention that in those 3 seasons, he trained under 3 different coaches, in 3 different systems and 3 different roles. it was a struggle to our most talented players.

Now we go into direct comparison when both players played in the same position (Supporting Striker, also Niang's main role this season).

ELS in the same period of time has had 3.5 times more goals than Niang, and he had Pazzini as the main striker, not Bacca.
as for their playing styles, ELS is faster, better ball control, better passer(not the best nonetheless), presses higher up the pitch and also tracks back to defend(arguably he saved many certain goals).

Niang on the other hand can't control a simple pass given to him, he's clumsy, and it almost always looks surprised that he received a pass.
Niang is also considered one of our faster players, yet I haven't seen him once utilize that speed to sprint past defenders.

While no, none of them might be the solution.. ELS is the better option to have playing on the wing, or better yet, to partner Bacca upfront.

No doubt he was injured and I think he has a naturally better touch and technique overall than Niang.He got worse after those two big injuries.Its his mental issues that are the problem , he started well at Roma just like Monaco.But one bump in the road and he goes into months of poor play.Niang had a broken foot and was out for 3/4 months came back just like he was before , his 6 goals 4 assists in his 14 games this season are good.Those are happening now , I had hoped SES would be our star , but he wasnt .His return when not injured was piss poor.I truely believe in the long run we're better off with Niang.

welcome sheva_7 and porcho, hope you guys enjoy it here.

I don't really see why Niang and El Shaarawy are being compared, they are different types of players with different qualities and their situations are also significantly different. In the case of El Shaarawy, I wish him the best. It didn't work out with us, whether it be because of form, injuries, mental strength, not being good enough or off field activities. Whatever it was, it's ended now and there's no point in crying over spilt milk for a guy whose still got everything to prove.

In Niang's case, I want us to grow him in the correct way. He's only 21 and at this point in his career has shown both immense potential and some significant weaknesses. However, the positive news seems to be that he's now firmed up his position as a forward. I think it's his natural role and Miha's developing him in this role quite well. Moreso, it seems we may have learnt a little from Pato's case and aren't trying to bulk him up unnaturally.

That's where I have a couple of thoughts about Niang. I think at 21, he's still maturing, both mentally and physically. His behaviour in the past year and a half has actually been very good, excellent even, which is one reason I think the club is willing to bank on him, because he's understanding the sacrifice required to play at the highest level. However, I still think that at this point he's still got to mature physically, and that can affect his game. To get into the biology of it a little, teen boys through to the age of early adulthood tend to have a lot of growth spurts, meaning their body grows fast and mentally they aren't always able to keep up, which is why they often seem clumsy physically. Looking at Niang at times on the pitch, it feels he's still adjusting to changes in his body and that at times leads to him appearing careless or not as sharp as expected. He's a big guy, meaning for him, it's probably harder to adjust to physical changes compared to smaller players.

Frankly, I think he needs a little patience and we need to accept he won't always be as decisive as last night. I also think Miha should get him to watch videos of Drogba. While I don't think Niang's the next Drogba (few are physically as impressive), he could learn a lot about how a player like Drogba uses his body to play against tight markers, I also think Drogba's movement off the ball is something Niang could learn a lot from. Bear in mind Niang's got pace and physically will naturally put on more muscle in the next year or two. Given he's already able to hold off a lot of Serie A's defenders with his strength, it will be interesting what he's capable of when he's matured.

It's official : End of contract for De Jong who will play in MLS (LA Galaxy).
Nocerino could follow him and play for Orlando.

Two good mercatos in a row (I think the summer one was quite good despite most say + this winter, we showed the door to some deadwood) ?
Galliani must have something in the pocket to ruin it today !

@Dev, I agree, but technically he's still our player.. and well... you never know
The discussion/comparison was actually started as to why we are so desperate to get rid of ELS while we're obviously lacking someone on the wings, whose to say the least is a better option than Cerci and to an extent Honda(on the wing).
The statistics comparison was just for the fun of it

@Jay: true, as I said when ELS got back he started slowly but I don't feel he was given enough time to regain his top form, nor was he given a chance to play closer to goal, thats all..
while Niang made his Serie A comeback/(season)debut with a bang(scored a goal?), in the following match he didn't perform as good as the previous and surely didn't guarantee a starting spot.
I have nothing against him, he might turn out to be one of the greats.. but certainly his ball control(or lack of it) pisses me off

anyway, our management almost always screwed up when it came to youngsters...

*Sorry for the double post.

De Jong's contract has been officially mutually terminated in preparation for a move to L.A Galaxy.

http://www.football-italia.net/79242/off...aves-milan

Good luck De Jong, thanks for everything.. including trying to be Van Bommel