Summer mercato 2012

[sylrus]

u say drenthe is good
but i say drenthe is mesbah
looks like u didnt read alot hisham
las diarra didnt want to come to milan
he rejected us twice
twice man
and carvalho is a better def than mexes even now

[ACMILAN1983]

Welcome to Pazzini and also Zapata who I think I never welcomed. Can't say the deal excites me, as like many I think the 7m makes the deal seem better for Inter, but either way what's happened has happened. At least we get a player for a role we need and removed a player that personally I didn't value very much given his attitude, lack of fitness and individuality. Like Ronaldinho and Ibra, Cassano isn't a team player, but rather a player whose individual quality is often relied on to produce great moments.

There's so much talk on amongst Milan fans about our lack of creativity, which is fair as over the past 20 years we've had creativity in abundance. However, for me this isn't my biggest concern, mostly because of the new balance of our game. Creative talents are a necessity when you play a brand of football that relies either on individual ability or if you play a strong possession game where you need players who can unlock opponents at any given moment. We no longer play the football we played in the 90's or even in the 2000's, where we'd either rely on individual talents or we'd play a possession based game heavily reliant on the individual quality in our side unlocking opposing defences. In reality, if we do this we'll fail as quite a few teams in Serie A alone appear to have better individual talents than us.

Now, our game must be based on movement through the team and coordination of the group. Ultimately, we no longer rely or can rely on individual quality, but instead it's up to Allegri to use what he has and build a system where the players each perform their role in coordination with each other to cause problems for opponents. If anything, this season is both the biggest test Allegri has had to face until now, but as Vialli recently said also the most stimulating challenge, as the club is much more reliant on his abilities than ever before. It's no longer up to us to look at players on the pitch to provide the creativity to unlock opponents, now we rely on the coach's creativity to change things from the dugout to unlock opponents.

In my opinion, if preseason has shown anything, it's that we're working towards the right direction to do this, starting off by playing a modern brand of football working towards quick attacking moves where the whole side moves forward together. We still need the odd player who can control the direction of our game as well, but this is exactly what Montolivo will offer with hopefully others coming in come January or next summer (Muntari also did this quite well last year). With the exception of the 1-0 loss to Juve in the TIM trophy (bearing in mind this was 45 minutes, not 90), we've scored in every match in preseason if I'm correct, against mostly teams that are in better shape than us and ahead of us both in terms of development of the side as well as preseason training. This I would like to say is also mostly without relying on Cassano.

Where I am concerned is our record defensively. The Real defeat as well as the recent Juve match really showed we're quite a mess here. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I do think this is a result of our midfield having lots of dynamic runners, but no player who can play the holding role, except the ageing and clearly past his best Ambro. This exposes our defence, which on its own doesn't have the individual quality it had in the past to compensate for this weakness. While a holder alone won't raise us to the level we desire, it will at least help us become stronger in midfield making it more difficult for opponents to get at our backline. We all know the names we've been linked to during the summer, such as Diarra or Strootman, but as I said yesterday, I personally would go for Nainggolan. Allegri knows him from his time at Cagliari, he's played 3-4 really solid and good years in Serie A and like Rino in the past, is often capable of covering for up to two players with his workrate. He's been one of the best mezzala in Serie A in recent years, but like Vidal for Juve is versatile enough to be used in other roles, such as a holder. More impressive is he's a really strong tackler and interceptor of the ball, but also a very competent player on the ball too, with a very good passing success rate. Personally, I don't see a better alternative that is attainable than Nainggolan, who at 24 is just the right age to step up and play at the highest level.

[LebRN]

I strongly agree on nainggolan but with the valuation being the problem I thought Gargano was the next best thing. Unfortunately, Gargano seems to already have signed for Inter so if we can pull off this guy and Kaka on loan then that would be a very good end to this mercato.

[sylrus]

nainggolan is good indeed
if we can get him it would be good enough for this mercato
and nainggolan can bring lots of money to the team
he got an asian blood in him

[LebRN]

Now we r linked to Ze Eduardo from .....Genoa
Anybody knows anything about this guy?

[Revolver]

ACMILAN1983, I understand what you're saying, but Milan cannot succeed playing that kind of football.

We can draw parallel with Mourinho's Inter, after Ibrahimovic left.

Mourinho played mostly on counter and with quick attacks, but he had a super-strong defense, supported by the best defensive midfielder in the world and Inter had a certain variety that we can only dream of. For example, Maicon could set up 5-10 goals for season only from the side, even scoring five goals, Sneijder had better vision than all of our current roster combined, as he could break any defense in the world at any time, Eto'o could score from individual moves, etc, etc.
We have nothing, we do not have a single side player who can cross, except Emanuelson, and he's in form for 10 games every season, we do not have a single player who can unlock defense except Montolivo who mostly goes missing after 50 minutes of the game, our defense sucks, and most imporant: We do not have capable players to break up attacks constantly so we can make quick counters. Only Nocerino and Boateng are players with lungs and Nocerino is average in breaking up the play, while 80% of Boateng's tackles are fouls.

One other thing to remember, Inter won CL title by beating Bayern when Bayern was concentrated on defense. 80% of Serie A teams pack the bus in front of their box for 90 minutes, which means forget quick counter.

[ACMILAN1983]

nainggolan is good indeed
if we can get him it would be good enough for this mercato
and nainggolan can bring lots of money to the team
he got an asian blood in him

lol, somehow I doubt Nainggolan is our ticket to the asian market

I strongly agree on nainggolan but with the valuation being the problem I thought Gargano was the next best thing. Unfortunately, Gargano seems to already have signed for Inter so if we can pull off this guy and Kaka on loan then that would be a very good end to this mercato.

It really depends on what your valuation of Nainggolan is. I mean he's not exactly a household name and only Juve have shown any serious interest in him in the past. Personally, I can't see him being valued at more than 15m and even then I think we can lower that.

Now we r linked to Ze Eduardo from .....Genoa
Anybody knows anything about this guy?

I saw that and it left me puzzled. I don't know much about him, but from what I've seen I can't think of any reason why we'd show any interest in the player.

ACMILAN1983, I understand what you're saying, but Milan cannot succeed playing that kind of football.

We can draw parallel with Mourinho's Inter, after Ibrahimovic left.

Mourinho played mostly on counter and with quick attacks, but he had a super-strong defense, supported by the best defensive midfielder in the world and Inter had a certain variety that we can only dream of. For example, Maicon could set up 5-10 goals for season only from the side, even scoring five goals, Sneijder had better vision than all of our current roster combined, as he could break any defense in the world at any time, Eto'o could score from individual moves, etc, etc.
We have nothing, we do not have a single side player who can cross, except Emanuelson, and he's in form for 10 games every season, we do not have a single player who can unlock defense except Montolivo who mostly goes missing after 50 minutes of the game, our defense sucks, and most imporant: We do not have capable players to break up attacks constantly so we can make quick counters. Only Nocerino and Boateng are players with lungs and Nocerino is average in breaking up the play, while 80% of Boateng's tackles are fouls.

One other thing to remember, Inter won CL title by beating Bayern when Bayern was concentrated on defense. 80% of Serie A teams pack the bus in front of their box for 90 minutes, which means forget quick counter.

Agree, but what you're talking about is a team that won the treble and was by and all a very complete side, compared to us, a team that has lost it's biggest stars, as well as numerous key figures and is starting a new cycle in what must be one of the most drastic changes any major club in football history has undertaken.

My point is I'm not expecting us to play this brand of football to go out and win the CL. Truth is, we're currently a side that can look at aiming at a top 3 finish in the league and on paper we're not even one of the favourites to accomplish that.

What I am saying is we're a side that has to change our approach to games from being one the relies heavily on the individual qualities in our side to one which works strongly as a collective. While we won't be able to achieve the heights Inter did with this side, we can at least achieve a successful season (top 3 Serie A).

About your points on our weaknesses. Inter did have individuals which could turn a game around, which currently we don't have, but that doesn't mean our squad isn't better than the majority of Serie A. We're not Bologna, even if we're not a side aiming to win CL.

About a player who can break up play, I totally agree, we're lacking this. That's why I have repeatedly said about needing a good holding midfielder, with Nainggolan as my choice.

I don't agree only Boateng and Nocerino are players with lungs in our squad. The majority of our midfielders and fullbacks have good stamina. Also, one of the reasons I want Nainggolan is his workrate.

Finally, your point about the majority of Serie A parking the bus is both true and false imo. I think we saw last year that the mentality in Serie A is to play a much more open and attacking brand of football than in the past. Also, there are a number of teams that will resort to parking the bus, and this is where how we approach the game is key. First point is playing a high pressure game to have sustained periods of pressure against opponents. Secondly relies heavily on Allegri making changes to our approach to attack the weaknesses of opponents as well as stretch tight defences. Finally, I want to stress I never said I see us playing a counter attacking game, as I previously said we need to play quick attacking moves. This to me is more about timing our attacks and strictly controlling the tempo of our game more than it is about the transition from defence to attack as soon as we win the ball back.

[LebRN]

I strongly agree on nainggolan but with the valuation being the problem I thought Gargano was the next best thing. Unfortunately, Gargano seems to already have signed for Inter so if we can pull off this guy and Kaka on loan then that would be a very good end to this mercato.

It really depends on what your valuation of Nainggolan is. I mean he's not exactly a household name and only Juve have shown any serious interest in him in the past. Personally, I can't see him being valued at more than 15m and even then I think we can lower that.

Exactly...15Mio!
Even if we can lower it to 10...have u not been following for the last few years???

[WCmilan]

Pato is injured again. God help us why can't this guy stay fit ever holy

[reza]

Saw this on twitter

@carlolaudisa
#Milan. #Pato is injured. In a few minutes the club will informs with the details #gds

I think 2012-13 is heading towards midtable...