Winter mercato 2024

[Beppe]

Tonali was also many years younger than Reijnders, and he had some very good stats. Tonali at his age has done very well! I would love that he comes back one day. He also had that fighting spirit.

Reijnders has also done very well, its only his first year! His technical ability is brilliant. He’s such a beautiful player to watch. Of he could improve his stats a bit more and work on his defensive skills he will reach a very high level, worldclass! He’s a late bloomer and he is improving every year! So I’m very happy with this signing.

Same goes for Pulisic, who many times has been our most dangerous player. He is levels above messias and Saelemaekers!
Technical ability of this team is much higher than in previous seasons.

But we need to keep them fit! And pioli has to stop that kamikaze type of football, team is ofter disorganized! And we need to stop getting all those red and yellow cards!!!

[Kris forever]

Why does "Tonali take the care" over Reijnders? Is this based on the fact that he's a Milan fan??? Tonali's career at Mioan was mediocre. His first was so disappointing rhat we essentially returned him to Brescia and demanded a discount to negotiate again. 2nd season was good, but more industrial then anything else. 3rd was mediocre again. So yea, I'd say Reijnders is proving to be quite the coup.

Tonali been great apart from the first season in which he was not in sync with the team. I consider him out best midfielder during the scudetto season and last season he was way over mediocre, posting both good numbers and being the player that played the most. Ran the most...

[sylrus]

I honestly thing all the signings, except Jovic, we're good. We upgraded positions we needed to upgrade. It was never going to all be done in 1 window. And to be completely fair, Reijnders, RLC and Pulisic have been a massive upgrade over what we saw last season in those positions. Additionally, we finally have a decent sub for Leao in Okafor...but Pioli won't play him unless skmeone in the attack dies. We have not upgraded at CF, and that's causing to be a problem. But like I said, ot was never going to be done in 1 summer.

I'll wait to judge Chuk. He came late on in the window, his progress has been interrupted through international duty (seems evert 4-5 weeks these days) and an injury.

The biggest issue currently is injuries and discipline. It's not even Pioli's dumbass tactics. But simply, we have not been able to play our strongest 11 for several matches in a row, apart from the very beginning of the season. It's either injuries or suspensions/red cards.

This team is not a top European level, but it has a ton of potential, and we've seen flashes of that. Ironically, moreso in the CL, as despite playing against Newcastle, Dortmund and PSG twice, we've only been outplayed in one of those games (in France).

I don't think it's fair to criticize the market after every bad performance. It's inaccurate imo. There are other issues on hand here. And yes. For those, Pioli might just be the biggest culprit.

dont need to wait, he is mediocre, have you seen his play before joining us? even youtube didnt impress me when watching him

[Sampinjon]

None of the new signings showed anything particularly impressive or any indication that they're capable to raise Milan on next level. Yes, they are slight or more slight upgrade comparing to their predecessors(except Tonali), but they're not material for true Milan, for Milan we all want to see. I wouldn't count on any of them as long term solution.

[Zio Fester]

Not only do Milan lead with 4 red cards so far in the league, they are 3rd in the table for most yellow cards. Lecce have 36, Juventus have 33 and Milan are on 32.

There is a disciplinary as well as injury crisis.

[nefremo]

I'll agree to disagree on Tonali. We have way more patience for Milan youth players or players that are Milan fans. I thought Tonali was good. He had some inconsistencies, which is normal. He had some great patches and some poor ones. It's all good. But I don't see that we miss Tonali (the player, not the leader or fan) on the field when we have a complete AND healthy team. And that's where the problem is.

I want to see is play this lineup for 5-10 games straight:
Mike, Calabria, Thiaw, Tomori, Theo, Bennacer, RLC, Reijnders, Leao, Pulisic, Giroud/Okafor
*I know Bennacer is a long term injury, so Krunic/Adli are the next in line there, so if 1 of the 2 was available, I'll count it. Additionally, our backups/rotation players which are meant to give our starters a breather (Chukwueze, Okafor, Kalulu) have also not been available....but let's forget that part for a second. Let's just focus on that starting lineup, minus Bennacer.
Do you know how many times we've been able to use that lineup? (I'm also including games where those players were available, but Pioli chose different options)

Here are the games where that starting lineup was available:
Bologna (win)
Torino (win)
Roma (win)
Newcastle (tie, but dominated)
Cagliari (win)
Lazio (win)
PSG (win)

Here are the games where the starting lineup wasn't available:
Inter (loss) - Tomori out due to red card in prior game
Verona (win) - Tomori out, Mike out
Dortmund (tie) - RLC out
Genoa (win) - RLC out
Juventus (loss) - RLC out, Thiaw red card
PSG (loss) - RLC out
Udinese (loss) - Theo out, Pulisic out
Napoli (tie) - RLC out, Thiaw out
Lecce (tie) - Pulisic out, RLC unavailable

I don't need to analyze. The difference in results is staggering!!! Now, I know that in Napoli's and Lecce's case, starters or not, we were up 2-0 and threw the game away. So the starters being unavailable isn't always a reason for bad results. But my point is, we've not been able to use our starters on a consistent basis since the very beginning of the season. I wanna see that group be available for 2-3 months, then we can talk about how our summer signings are or are not good

[Sampinjon]

We should also look strength of teams we won/lose. In first group, apart from PSG, all others are joke. Newcastle played probably their worst game since club was founded, Roma and Lazio are just names. As for other group, all I'll say is: if team depends of one or two players being in or out, than F that team

[nefremo]

What do you mean? 2nd group of teams has Lecce and Udinese in there. And then, Newcastle had the worst game ever? Can I say Inter had their beat game ever against us, so let's not count that? Can I say Juventus was dominated in their half until we got a red card, so let's not count that?

Every game has it's own story, and at this level, it's own moments that can swing a game one way or another. Moreso then anything, that starting 11 is able to play against the best out there, and win. I don't think you can deny that. And that starting 11 has 3 new players from this summer. The point was to show that the summer market wasn't bad. It was actually good. I don't think last year's team would have done as well in the CL. Not just results, but gameplay as well.
Problem is, keeping those guys fit for a prolonged period of time. 

On your last sentence.....well....I agree.  
But, that goes along with the same theme of having unfit backups. Okafor, Chukwueze, Kalulu, Krunic. 

I'll go ahead and blame Pioli and his fitness staff on what's happening now. But not the summer additions. For ne, they've proven to have quality and I think we have way more quality in the squad compared to last year. For me, Pioli has no excuses anymore. He has the tools to be fighting with Inter at the top. But he's bottling it big time. Partly for his own idiotic choices, partly for losing the squads discipline, and in large part due to injuries (which can no longer be attributet to bad luck...but are a direct cause of his and his staff's training and preparation methods).

[Sampinjon]

I want to say that other group have more though opponents and there is no guarantee that we would win those games even with strongest squad available and vice versa for first group. I want to say that if we swap "teams", results would be the same.
Also, there is no team which have same line-up available for 2-3 months. Even if you, by some miracle, avoid injuries and suspensions, rotation is inevitable, considering 2 games per week schedule. When you have good players, team is able to "compensate" occasional absence, despite of backups quality. Here, that's not the case. If 1 or two 2 starters are missing, rest 9-10 are not able to handle that situation.

[1994.acmilan]

Why does "Tonali take the care" over Reijnders? Is this based on the fact that he's a Milan fan??? Tonali's career at Mioan was mediocre. His first was so disappointing rhat we essentially returned him to Brescia and demanded a discount to negotiate again. 2nd season was good, but more industrial then anything else. 3rd was mediocre again. So yea, I'd say Reijnders is proving to be quite the coup.

On Pulisic, let's agree to disagree. You should have been here last season to see the outcry and the desperate ask for a change at the right wing. No matter if you were here or not, you definitely would have noticed it. Pulisic has more quality then both Saele and Messias. Messias scored 10 goals for Milan in his entire time here. Pulisic has already scored 4 in 3 months. How is that not an upgrade?? I'm not even going to talk about Saelemaekers. That doesn't even need comparison.

Lol saying Tonali's career at Milan was mediocre is quite biased. We have to acknowledge the facts even though he's gone and we might be disappointed. Regardless of stats, the large majority of football fans watching Milan would agree Tonali has more presence on the pitch than Reijnders currently. Reijnders is a very elegant player, he could be at Tonali's level or surpass him but as of right now it's simply not the case. We sold our best midfielder & that takes time to replace.

On Pulisic, whether I was on this forum or not doesn't change the fact that I was still a Milan fan & watched every game. Pulisic has scored 4 goals in 3 months but as of recently he's put in a lot of disappearing acts and is struggling to stay fit. I would simply wait until the end of the season to claim that he's a 'massive' upgrade over Messias or Saele. He cost 20-25m euros and for what he's shown thus far it wasn't worth spending the money. Saelemakers actually put in certain displays that wow'd all of us early on hence why we didn't look for replacements in the transfer windows immediately after. He was a good team player & worked hard. End of the day, not much has changed. We've had unprecedented struggles scoring goals and our only real source of attack comes from the left side, from Theo & Leao as per usual.

My main judgment on Pulisic is honestly that he is cleaner and seems higher quality than Messias/Saele but it's marginal. Combine that with spending more money on Chuk who's shown so far to be worse than Saele& Messias and honestly it just looks like bad allocation of $$$$.