Summer Mercato 2022

[Zio Fester]

Sky: Milan offer for Onyedika is €4M + bonuses. There is still some distance between the clubs.

[porcho]

wait.. we're really comparing Casadei to Hauge?
One is possibly going to Chelsea... the other was just sold to AA Gent...
That says it all.

more NDicka rumous popping up today.

[hwmook]

Exactly. Letting good players walk for free and then have to spend money replacing them is part of the reason we have no money to spend on positions of need right now. Take Maignan, for example, some fans like to argue "he only cost 16m, what a steal!". But if you look at the whole picture, Maignan actually cost Donnarumma + 16m for us. If we sold Donna when we could, for even 20m, we would have gotten 20m more to spend on a striker/RW/midfielder. A team whose total revenue is barely in the 300m does not have the luxury of letting players walk for free. If the argument is "well, we had no option, he only had one year left on his deal and nobody was putting up money to sign him", then we should've sold him the year before.

If we let Donnarumma leave 2 years earlier then we would need to spend a big part of that on a replacement which might not be good enough to carry us to UCL qualification so we end up losing more. Its easier said than done. We tried to sell Kessie 2 years before his contract end but he doesn't want to leave and he wasn't that great then. There is really no point harping on the past, the circumstances are different then.

[hwmook]

Good post nefremo. But i disagree that no Kessie dont hurt the startin line up. I saw one really big vulnerbility in the game with Udinese, and it was a structural one. First of all: Theo had to take care of all the defensive work all by himself, because Leao did not track home. And here is the problem. With the Kessie- Tonali pivote, Kessie was essential to cover Theo and also Leao because we know that Leao is not the best defensive asset. With him, Theo could stay further up, and Leao did not need to think so much of defensive contributions. Our whole left side benefited from this. I trust that Tonali can do the same job, but its needs to be done. Our left side is fantastic, but also a liability, not because Theo is bad defensively, he has become a monster, but because of mostly Leao. Love the guy but he needs to take more responsilbility defensively.

I agree with nefremo and its the different way we want the team to play. Playing kessie give more stability to defence but he is limited going forward, can't give a proper long pass. I prefer players like Tonali, Bennacer who give more balance to the team and will not result in us going on the backfoot. Kessie in UCL is a horror story, we have seen that. I actually am confident Adli can be mould into another Bennacer.

[reza]

If we let Donnarumma leave 2 years earlier then we would need to spend a big part of that on a replacement which might not be good enough to carry us to UCL qualification so we end up losing more. Its easier said than done. We tried to sell Kessie 2 years before his contract end but he doesn't want to leave and he wasn't that great then. There is really no point harping on the past, the circumstances are different then.

Maignan being great doesn't mean others do not or did not exist. Kessie could have been replaced by someone better than he was at the time.
More importantly, any replacements, for every player not just these two, must be scouted and only bought after extensive scouting. It is very reasonable to expect a team like Milan having the tools to find (current or future) 'stars' when there is a need.

[slifersd1]

If we let Donnarumma leave 2 years earlier then we would need to spend a big part of that on a replacement which might not be good enough to carry us to UCL qualification so we end up losing more. Its easier said than done. We tried to sell Kessie 2 years before his contract end but he doesn't want to leave and he wasn't that great then. There is really no point harping on the past, the circumstances are different then.

Yes, we would need to spend the money to buy a replacement, but that still might work to our advantage if we sell Donna for 40m and sign someone for 30m. That is a net 10m gain, whereas letting Donna go and sign Maignan was a net 16m loss. To be honest, I don't think Donna was actually that difficult to replace. He had a lot of good saves but was fairly error prone and clumsy with his feet. I am reasonably sure we could've found someone who is at least a decent replacement for him if we had the money and need for it.

We did not try to sell Kessie two years ago, dude. We were fully committed to negotiating him until we are all blue in the face and then wanted to sell him this past January but Kessie didn't want to leave cause he knew he was gonna get a big fat contract in free agency.

[nefremo]

If we sold Donnarumma with 2 years to go on his contract, people were going to be throwing bottles at the management anyway. "We are a selling club", "we can't keep our players", "we sold for cheap and don't know how to sell", etc

It's a lose lose situation. No matter how you look at it. Only after the fact it's easier to analyze and draw conclusions. People still talk about "we could have sold him for 100m". Yea right. NOBODY was going to pay that. PSG's bid was 16m + Areola. You kidding? If Paolo sold Dollar for 16m + Areola, people would have burned his house.

Best way is to form a team (by any means possible - cheap, free, young, old, expensive, whatever) that wins. That's what keeps people happy (for the most part at least). This is what the management has done. They have done as best as possible, within the circumstamces. Theirs is a "cheap" young winning team. This is what they succeeded with. So maybe it's best to keep going that way.
Sometimes I think, maybe it's better that we don't have these big EPL budgets. I mean, look what we did when Elliot first put a lot of money in the market. We went and burned it on Paqueta and Piatek. Higuain and Caldara. Zero plan, zero scouting, zero fire under our feet. Just "playing with dealer's money" and whatever is, will be.
It's just a bit more fun this way. And the victories taste sweeter!

[porcho]

If we sold Donnarumma with 2 years to go on his contract, people were going to be throwing bottles at the management anyway. "We are a selling club", "we can't keep our players", "we sold for cheap and don't know how to sell", etc

It's a lose lose situation. No matter how you look at it. Only after the fact it's easier to analyze and draw conclusions. People still talk about "we could have sold him for 100m". Yea right. NOBODY was going to pay that. PSG's bid was 16m + Areola. You kidding? If Paolo sold Dollar for 16m + Areola, people would have burned his house.

Best way is to form a team (by any means possible - cheap, free, young, old, expensive, whatever) that wins. That's what keeps people happy (for the most part at least). This is what that management had done. They have done as best as possible, within the circumstamces. Theirs is a "cheap" young winning team. This is what they succeeded with. So maybe it's best to keep going that way.
Sometimes I think, maybe it's better that we don't have these big EPL budgets. I mean, look what we did when Elliot first put a lot of money in thr market. We went and burned it on Paqueta and Piatek. Higuain and Caldara. Zero plan, zero scouting, zero fire under our feet. Just "playing with dealer's money" and whatever is, will be.
It's just a but more fun this way. And the victories taste sweeter!

THIS! everytime the DOllar thing comes up. everyone is always like should haves and could haves but no one thinking of the fact we DID try to sell him and all we got offered was a joke offer.
Ultimately we're just too nice. Trusting peoples words rather than just being ruthless and selling anyone not willing to sign on. 

this. we had new owners with cash and blew it. We're now playing it smart and safe but we have a set plan that has worked.

[honsano]

Ok this stuff is a bit of revisionist history. Players in their final year of their contract demand less. Also when you sell a player, you automatically inflate the price of your purchase as the selling club knows you have money.

Romagnoli: decent in 2019-2020, fair to poor with Pioli style man marking in 2020-2021. He was poor 2021-2022 and lost his spot to Kalulu. He was on high wages too. He was going to have to take a salary cut and I don’t think most teams would pay it to facilitate a transfer knowing that. It makes sense of him going to Lazio.

Hakan: poor 2019-2020. The likelihood of us getting decent transfer was poor. 2020-2021 he did better with Pioli but not great. We did offer a fair salary (would be one of the highest paid in the squad) and he declined. Ultimately when we could sell him 20’, we would have gotten a pittance.

Kessie: 2019-2020 he was fair but only because he improved vastly the second half of the season. So do you renew after 1/2 a season of good form on significantly elevated wages or see if he is consistent. We did the latter and that is reasonable. He did well in 2020-2021 and we offered an extension. He delayed and ultimately in 2021-2022 his form dipped. The only chance to realistically sell was summer 21’ at that point again low return..

Let’s then look at what happened. Kessie, Romagnoli and Hakan helped us to a CL qualification x2 and a Scudetto (Hakan by virtue of being a chump). Most importantly, They allowed players like Tonali, Kalulu, Tomori space to grow and get into the starting lineup. There is no guarantee that selling Hakan for 15mil in the summer 20’ or Kessie for 20 mil in the summer of 21’ would have really allowed us to buy a player that could get us a Scudetto. Based on the results of what happened with this team so far, it is hard to argue these were the wrong decisions. You can’t just look at money in money out.

[porcho]

Ok this stuff is a bit of revisionist history. Players in their final year of their contract demand less. Also when you sell a player, you automatically inflate the price of your purchase as the selling club knows you have money.

Romagnoli: decent in 2019-2020, fair to poor with Pioli style man marking in 2020-2021. He was poor 2021-2022 and lost his spot to Kalulu. He was on high wages too. He was going to have to take a salary cut and I don’t think most teams would pay it to facilitate a transfer knowing that. It makes sense of him going to Lazio.

Hakan: poor 2019-2020. The likelihood of us getting decent transfer was poor. 2020-2021 he did better with Pioli but not great. We did offer a fair salary (would be one of the highest paid in the squad) and he declined. Ultimately when we could sell him 20’, we would have gotten a pittance.

Kessie: 2019-2020 he was fair but only because he improved vastly the second half of the season. So do you renew after 1/2 a season of good form on significantly elevated wages or see if he is consistent. We did the latter and that is reasonable. He did well in 2020-2021 and we offered an extension. He delayed and ultimately in 2021-2022 his form dipped. The only chance to realistically sell was summer 21’ at that point again low return..

Let’s then look at what happened. Kessie, Romagnoli and Hakan helped us to a CL qualification x2 and a Scudetto (Hakan by virtue of being a chump). Most importantly, They allowed players like Tonali, Kalulu, Tomori space to grow and get into the starting lineup. There is no guarantee that selling Hakan for 15mil in the summer 20’ or Kessie for 20 mil in the summer of 21’ would have really allowed us to buy a player that could get us a Scudetto. Based on the results of what happened with this team so far, it is hard to argue these were the wrong decisions. You can’t just look at money in money out.

100% this too. 
Romagnoli would have gotten as peanuts. from memory the only offer for Hakan was 12/13m I though from Turkey and he had no interest in going there. 

Kessie screwed us but he did help us with the title win. even though I don't rate him that highly, and don't think he was key to us winning, there's no doubt he helped. We had Spurs after him in the summer and he chose to reject them in favour of a free transfer to Barcelona. The only chance we had was sell him start of the season but he made a public promise he was sticking around and would sign. how are management to know he was full of shit