Summer mercato 2020

[nefremo]

Genoa star Paolo Ghiglione is holding out a move to Milan(Tuttosport)

The media just loves to torture us, don't they? They must have a list of players rated by quality......"Great; Average; Poor".
1) Filter by "Average"
2) Pick a player,
3) Link selected player to Milan

Can't say I blame them. They look at the trend of what we've been buying the last several years and they roll with it. More likely to be correct that way.

If however this is true....than whoever made contact with Ghiglione and showed interest in him (Maldini, Massara, Moncada, Gazidis....), call that person in the office and fire them right on the spot. Since clearly they don't have Milan's best interest in mind.

[Arildonardo]

"Genoa star"...

We never learn.

[reza]

I make a prediction that Roma is not going anywhere

Almost separately I wish to ban the 'project' word There are rich teams and not rich teams, those that can spend have a project for sure but not in the sense that rumours talk about, only project is that the money solve weaknesses. Even if project exists its in the Ajax sense, not even Dortmund cause they have a good scouting may be, that's not a project.

[Sleeping Giant]

One must follow Lazio's example, i don't remember when the last time they spent more than 20M on a player but despite that they are right now they are very close to Scudetto and are on verge of UCL qualification I think after 13 long years... Although they were very lucky with their signings.

[xudong]

"Genoa star"...

We never learn.

Let's not laugh at a team that beat us on our home turf. 

[nefremo]

To be honest, I don't think Lazio is a good example to follow, although that's not to say we can't learn from some of the things they've done. Reason why i'm saying that is because they finished 8th last year. So for all we know, this year could be an anomaly. Prior to last year they had a few 5th place finishes (since Inzaghi has been with them). It's yet to be seen if they'll keep improving and finish in the top 4 again next year, let alone challenge for a title. To be honest, it's likelier the answer to that question to be a NO rather than a YES. They buy decent players (from which many have failed in top clubs before - Immobile, L.Alberto, Acerbi) for low prices and hope that they work out. So far a lot of them have worked out, but it's not a sustainable model. We've tried it, and it didn't work for us (mainly because we didn't follow the 2 things I'm about to say below).

What we CAN learn from them is 2 things:
1) Management continuity (including coaching first and foremost)
2) Retention of your best players (they've done everything they can to retain guys like SMS, Immobile, L.Alberto. They did everything they could with De Vrij too, but it just didn't work out and they couldn't compete with Inter and their financial power.


I think we have 2 options:
1) Start splashing crazy amounts of money on transfer fees and salaries and bring in top players (NOT possible)
2) Pick out young players that have enormous potential through intensive scouting, and get them prior to them becoming 50mil Euro players

Lazio's way would have us signing players in between those 2 options. Players that have performed decent at lower clubs but clearly don't have world class potential (Parolo, Marusic, Radu, Lukaku, Lazzari, Jony, Bastos, Caicedo, etc) or players that shot to fame in the past for one reason or another but have failed in other top clubs and are now looking to rediscover themselves (Immobile, L.Alberto, Acerbi). This model just doesn't convince me. Never mind the fact that we've actually tried this model multiple times in the last few years when we didn't have an extensive scouting network but had some money and pull due to our name (but still couldn't afford "real" players).
This model is good enough for an EL spot (which is where we have been and frankly where Lazio has been until this year and where they are likely to be again starting next year). Lazio finishing in the top 4 once with their model doesn't mean anything yet unless they are able to repeat it. But as I said, there are a ton more examples out there showing this model = EL, rather than CL or title challenge.

[Arildonardo]

Let's not laugh at a team that beat us on our home turf. 

Because they trick us into buying the players they no longer want. 

[Sleeping Giant]

To be honest, I don't think Lazio is a good example to follow, although that's not to say we can't learn from some of the things they've done. Reason why i'm saying that is because they finished 8th last year. So for all we know, this year could be an anomaly. Prior to last year they had a few 5th place finishes (since Inzaghi has been with them). It's yet to be seen if they'll keep improving and finish in the top 4 again next year, let alone challenge for a title. To be honest, it's likelier the answer to that question to be a NO rather than a YES. They buy decent players (from which many have failed in top clubs before - Immobile, L.Alberto, Acerbi) for low prices and hope that they work out. So far a lot of them have worked out, but it's not a sustainable model. We've tried it, and it didn't work for us (mainly because we didn't follow the 2 things I'm about to say below).

What we CAN learn from them is 2 things:
1) Management continuity (including coaching first and foremost)
2) Retention of your best players (they've done everything they can to retain guys like SMS, Immobile, L.Alberto. They did everything they could with De Vrij too, but it just didn't work out and they couldn't compete with Inter and their financial power.


I think we have 2 options:
1) Start splashing crazy amounts of money on transfer fees and salaries and bring in top players (NOT possible)
2) Pick out young players that have enormous potential through intensive scouting, and get them prior to them becoming 50mil Euro players

Lazio's way would have us signing players in between those 2 options. Players that have performed decent at lower clubs but clearly don't have world class potential (Parolo, Marusic, Radu, Lukaku, Lazzari, Jony, Bastos, Caicedo, etc) or players that shot to fame in the past for one reason or another but have failed in other top clubs and are now looking to rediscover themselves (Immobile, L.Alberto, Acerbi). This model just doesn't convince me. Never mind the fact that we've actually tried this model multiple times in the last few years when we didn't have an extensive scouting network but had some money and pull due to our name (but still couldn't afford "real" players).
This model is good enough for an EL spot (which is where we have been and frankly where Lazio has been until this year and where they are likely to be again starting next year). Lazio finishing in the top 4 once with their model doesn't mean anything yet unless they are able to repeat it. But as I said, there are a ton more examples out there showing this model = EL, rather than CL or title challenge.

I was actually more sarcastic than realistic about Nazio

Only thing I like about Lazio transfer policy is that they have been scouting a lot of talented young players from Serie C, Serie D and other Eastern European leagues loan them to sister club Salerntina and include them in transfer deal to convince them to lower their price. This isn't bad idea btw.

[nefremo]

Yea, not a bad idea at all. It's actually exactly what Ralf would do....only that he's likely to get players from France, Austria, Holland, Belgium. I believe we are also now doing something similar with Moncada so that was a step in the right direction. It's just unfortunate that for so many years we relied on 1 person making those decisions (Galliani and than Mirabelli) in correspondence with agents....rather than having a scouting network.

[Sleeping Giant]

One should not forget how Lotito also recused Lazio from bankruptcy when their filthy rich owner(don't remember his name) left the club on the brink of collapse and save them from directly relegating them to depth of Serie D...