Summer Mercato

i have a feeling that r10's deal ll be done in a week..
finally we're awake..

Originally Posted by Jeff

Gilardino took penalty at Parma while he never did at Milan in his first season. If you think about that, you figure that he'll score more than 20goals easily in his first season.

And people crying that Gilardino is not good enough in terms of scoring.

Honestly, the stats seem to suggest otherwise. This shows three things:

1) People who claim that he has three years to prove himself but did not is b***s*** because he did just equally in the first year. Shevchenko took most of the penalty and thus scored the same number of goals as Gilardino. If we are to criticize anyone that season, it has to be Shevchenko.

2) Gilardino just became worse all of a sudden for the past two years. You figure out why.

3) OR: Gilardino simply is NOT good enough, all of a sudden.

You figure the reasons out yourself. My conclusion is that he no longer fits with Milan's system. Ever since MIlan sold Shevchenko, have we really found a good replacement for him? Pato? Too young and not enough experience. R99? Injured and injured... Oliveria? Com'on....

We have this debate for almost three years. Wait, in fact no one criticizes him in the first year; only when Milan played horribly for the past two seasons that people begin to pick on him. Whatever, we have already sold him so there is no point in looking back.

Excellent post !!
Exactly what I think, I would add that we made a big mistake ...

And to explain why people started to whistle him and criticize him: it's easy, people always have to choose targets when something goes wrong ... Milan plays poorly, it's Gilardino's fault !! They never noticed that we didn't play better when Gila was off ...

Originally Posted by Jeff

I would just HATE it if Gilardino started scoring like 20goals per season again. That is a total slap in Milan's management face AND probably Ancelotti's face. I honestly pray that it won't happen (i.e., I hope Gila flop at Fio too).

It's the part I disagree: I really hope he will score 20-25 goals next season !!
Just to show to all these guys who wanted him to go (and now happy) that they made their biggest mistake about Milan by criticizing him ... and also to have again the good Gilardino in Italian NT !!

Originally Posted by Jeff

Ok good point. What I'm trying to convey is that we have to be careful about claiming someone to be great only after he had succeeded in another club after the transfer. That way is truly just a hindsight bias that offers very little.

I have already explained somewhere else why it's factually flawed to say that Torres would have done well in Serie A (simply because you can't compare players when they play in different leagues because different leagues have different styles. Example include Crespo, Sheva, Oliveria etc.)

Perhaps like Dru said Torres is going to succeed everywhere in the world. In any case, it's more important to look ahead than to look back.

Cheers - J

Very good point here. But we have to take this into consideration as well. Every time you sign a player from anywhere, there is a certain risk associated with that. Players from a different country may not fit in well with the new style of play of the country, may have language problems and problems living in a new country (Shevchenko, Crespo, Mutu); Players from smaller clubs may not be able to handle the pressure playing for a huge club (Gilardino); a player moving from one major club to another in the same country may have trouble accepting his new roles or get along with his teammates. The key to make good signing and investments is try to minimize the risk you take on. But as we all know, risk cannot be eliminated altogether. The question mark surrounding his ability to adopt shouldn't be the reason we reject the chance at signing this guy.

I understand what you mean by looking forward, but we also have to learn from our past mistakes. After all, that's why we all take history classes when we were in schools. The mistake we made on Torres was that we probably didn't do a very good job scouting, among other things. And that wouldn't exactly be the first time that's happened to us. If we continue to make false evaluations on players, we will just make one mistake after another.

Originally Posted by slifersd

He has become a much better player skillwise and the fact that he didn't score more could be attributed to several different factors such as the level of play of the rest of his team.

So for Borriello, people say that he scored a lot because defenses are less careful (or any other adjective lol) than against us, and for Torres who were playing for an average middle-table team, you say he didn't score a lot because his team wasn't that good ...

That sounds funny to me ...

Originally Posted by slifersd

I understand what you mean by looking forward, but we also have to learn from our past mistakes.

But we can't ALWAYS look in the past too ... sometimes, the page has to be turned !!

Nice to see us conclude the Zambrotta business...wouldn't be surprised though if we don't make any purchases until after the Euros though.

Now a question: Does this impact the potential Vargas purchase?

These are good conversations; OK, so what's next?

Striker: We have to buy a top-quality striker. We have to. Pato is great, there is no doubt about it. I hope that he'll become the next shevchenko, if he is not one already. But he needs to be more tactically savvy; right now he is still not tactically apt; We already see it in the game we played against Inter Milan for the last 15minutes. Borriello... I mean... honestly?

We need one top-quality striker. NOW.

***

Just like Kris said in another thread, we need a DC who is world-class, NOW. I share with Kris's idea, becuase with Nesta + Kaladze + Kalac/Dida, it doesn't sound safe. Kaladze has on and off, and Nesta is more injury-prone than before; he also made mistakes that he would never have made in the past.

How to build a winning team? Start with the defense first. We need at least 2 more defenders who can fill Nesta or Maldini. Zambrotta reinforces the side, but we have issues with DC, as well.


**** Midfield: FLamini is an excellent signing, that's all I can say now. But who's next? I really prefer an AMC who can sub Kaka once for a while and rotate. Otherwise Kaka is just going to burn out physically and emotionally at the end. We need one AMC who can also sub his (and Seedorf?) role, soon.

Here we need at least three players. Three more players and I will feel better...

Oh well... how about GK? *sigh*....

Nice to see us conclude the Zambrotta business...wouldn't be surprised though if we don't make any purchases until after the Euros though.

Now a question: Does this impact the potential Vargas purchase?

i hope the baldie doesn come out and say,our mercato is closed since we have a top target man in the form of borriello,a midfielder flamini and a defender..
just hope he doesnt

Originally Posted by Siregar

This another case. We are talking about last year (that time, that condition)



Gila was not to be next Sheva as he came to make partnership with Sheva upfront. Oliviera was a mistake but we were so desperete to look for a striker and the time of summer transfer was going to end.

Here is something else we should think about when we think about last year. We had no striker to score for us at all! Our best strikers were Ronaldo and Pippo, both of these guys are good for at most 1/3 of a season. Like I said in one of my previous posts, when you have nothing, anything is better than that. Torres had risks associated with him, especially when his price is that high, but we needed a big name striker badly and he was probably the only one available at the moment. If you can't have lobster for dinner, would you rather buy yourself a steak or eat nothing? My money is on the steak, LOL!

In the case of Gilardino, I had the same feeling that he was going to be Shevchenko's partner when he arrived. That, however, all changed the summer after. We sold Shevchenko for a boat load of cash and then refused to spend it on a suitable replacement. Gilardino was being counted on as Shevchenko's actual replacement as the leading man of our attack. He had a good season and our management believed that he was the next great Milan striker and finally agreed to sell Shevchenko to Chelsea. Oliveira, to a certain degree was just another guy they brought in to give us more options and variety up front with his speed.

Originally Posted by GeoTav

So for Borriello, people say that he scored a lot because defenses are less careful (or any other adjective lol) than against us, and for Torres who were playing for an average middle-table team, you say he didn't score a lot because his team wasn't that good ...

That sounds funny to me ...

One hit wonder is the word here. Besides, Borriello was the center for the entire Genoa offense while Torres had to share the wealth with guys like Aguero when he was in Spain. Torres' biggest selling point to me was that he was somewhat consistent while Borriello could very well be a one and done type of player who will never make it big again.

As long as we have learned our lessons, we can turn the pages. If we don't do that, we are in for more trouble. So the question here is, have we learned our lessons?

Good questions Jeff...and I would nominate Zapata for the central defense, Moutinho/Deco/Nasri for the Kaka/Seedorf sub (in the event we don't get R10...as we surely won't get both an AM and R10), and Gomez/Benzema.

Note those are players I wish we would aquire, not who I think we will sign.

Tomorro though, be warned, I could have a very different selection!

Silly season....gotta love it!

Originally Posted by slifersd

Here is something else we should think about when we think about last year. We had no striker to score for us at all! Our best strikers were Ronaldo and Pippo, both of these guys are good for at most 1/3 of a season.

I agree. If I remember right, during the start of the season, it took around half a dozen matches till any of our strikers scored a goal. All of the goals came from Kaka, Seedorf and Ambro. Even Gatusso scored once. I don't exactly remember the details but that was the tale.

After the Milan derby in December, we managed to score the same number of points as Inter. All of this happened in spite of the ridiculously busy schedule in January and February. We have reinforced our squad a bit already. Pato is getting better everyday. I expect Milan to win the Scudetto.

I think one of the major reasons is that our wings were useless for the first half of the season, relying solely on the path of central midfield. THink about Oddo's service and you'll understand why.

Originally Posted by slifersd

One hit wonder is the word here. Besides, Borriello was the center for the entire Genoa offense while Torres had to share the wealth with guys like Aguero when he was in Spain. Torres' biggest selling point to me was that he was somewhat consistent while Borriello could very well be a one and done type of player who will never make it big again.

As long as we have learned our lessons, we can turn the pages. If we don't do that, we are in for more trouble. So the question here is, have we learned our lessons?

About Borriello, I was just pointing out the fact that people use different arguments depending of the player whereas they are in approximately the same situation lol: don't be wrong, I don't remember about you, but I am not a Boriello fan, not at all, and I'm not a Torres-hater, not at all too lol (each summer, I said to my older brother who is a Juventus fan things like "You'll see, we're going to buy Torres and all we will let to Juventus will be their eyes to cry !!" ... never happened lol but Calciopoli helped me anyway to make them crying ahahahah) !!

Warro, your list is almost perfect ... just put off Deco and Nasri from that list !! lol