11-01-2023, 09:56 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-01-2023, 10:00 PM by 1994.acmilan.)
(10-31-2023, 08:49 PM)Sampinjon Wrote: Just look at who we bought:
RLC, Pulisic - bad seasons behind them, team who targeted at least CL - ended 12th. both transfer listed because not good enough
Raindeer - mid Dutch team
Okafor - small league, yet to prove if he is capable of playing at top levels
Chukwueze - I know Villareal got Europe, so it's 5-8th, so they weren't underperforming but they didn't overperforming either
Musah - also from underperforming team
Jovic and rest I wont even elaborate.
All of them can turn out to be good, but for none of them there is no valid reason to believe they will. It's only let's hope.
Now, if our mercato looked like:
instead of two underperforming players from underperforming club we got two best players from team who overperformed or showed something in EPL, let's say Arsenal
if in Spain we bought goodies from Real, Barcelona or Atletico
if in Netherland we bought best player from PSV or other top team of theirs
etc...
than Cardinale could come out and say, listen folks, I provided you top reinforcements, I expect title and something in CL. He would be right. No one could argue with it.
But to do that with those which he actually bought. It just doesn't sounds right to me.
I agree with this, we definitely signed Quantity over Quality... With the money we spent from Tonali's sale plus an additional 45m, we could've looked at signing maybe 2-3 players at most that would actually improve the team..
Here's the thing though. Who? It's easy to talk in hindsight but think about some of those players. Who wants to come to Serie A, to Milan? I know it's sad to say it but we don't have the same stock as EPL teams or PSG or Bayern anymore. Not Barca or Madrid surely either.
Do you guys realize how far off we are from even a team like Atletico Madrid? We've been going further in CL than them, even having better odds of winning our respective league titles than them. You could say we are competitively at par or even achieved better the last couple years than they did. Here's the catch, from an attractive stand point for top players we are SO FAR off Atletico Madrid.
Have any of you actually taken the time to review what type of money we spend as a club? Our highest earners are Leao and Bennacer at around 7m euros gross... Do you guys want to see Atleticos top earners?
1) Jan Oblak 20,830,000 euros gross
2) Koke 16,000,000 euros
3) Morata 13,540,000 euros
4) Carrasco 13,130,000 euros
5) Griezman 12,500,000 euros
6) Saul 12,000,000 euros
And the list goes on... The point is, I can't see Pioli getting sacked because he's part of managements plan that seems to be working for them. Consider the spend, we are tremendously overachieving compared to other clubs IMO.
Even when compared to Inter their yearly wages are almost 30-40m euros more than ours. That's a solid 3-4 top top player wages. Calhanoglu almost gets paid double our best player (Leao) with around 11.5m gross compared to Leaos 7 million something.
End of the day, what I'm saying is we cant expect miracles. We're very financially healthy yes, but we also have to have realistic expectations with that. Top players these days don't care as much about our illustrious history as much as they care about the fact that we're a discount top team. We don't pay nearly as much as ANY of the other teams competing at our level and players + their agents know this surely. We simply aren't an attractive destination for top players, they want to get paid period. If we keep following this wage bill structure we'll need to groom our talent. Not many coaches will accept that Gasperini / Pioli role of taking over a club that needs grooming and selling to buy.
