Milan are not very good imo

Firenze wrote:yeah true, wasn't sure if he was in charge of transfers entirely. Definitely a calamity in that respect. I won't put the blame on him for Bonucci, everyone saw that as a massive coup, and it should have been if Bonucci weren't an unprofessional pos who regressed hugely over the space of three months. Montella does have to go but I think this season is a write off anyway.

He wasn't in charge of the transfers entirely, thats Fassone and Mirabelli.

What Montella is guilty of is not making this work at all. Its a tough job to integrate 11 signings that are suppose to bring you immediate results that elevate the team. I don't think many coaches could do it well and fast. What is for sure though, is that Montella failed so far.

A lot of these signings would look great in Juve, Roma or Inter for example. Rodriguez would start for Inter or Roma atm at LB. But for Montella he is playing CB...

Once again would like to point out Montella specifically requested a lot of players (Kalinic, Musacchio, Kessie)

There was a point during the summer where the Milan fans got so greedy, people like ES were sniffing at Aubameyang

Now they're playing a duo of Borini and Kalinic, both of whom look like they'd flop so hard at HSV the club would finally get relegated

Even with Aubameyang or Belotti who seemed more likely at the time, Montella would've not been getting better results. Realistically, they have a much better squad than last season and are performing no better and that's a sign of a poor manager.

It's like buying a Lamborghini and letting @tom drive after a night at the pub with the lads

Bad example because i reckon that would be a fantastic idea imo.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Bad example because i reckon that would be a fantastic idea imo.

Until you hit a brick wall named Chiellini. Then Sergeant Immobile comes and slashes your tires while you're stopped and Icardi siphons your gas out and replaces it with urine

They don't have a much better squad than last year.

- Bonucci: Carried by Juve/Chiellini
- André Silva: Decent at best, gets no service anyways
- Conti: Fair
- Calhanoglu: Shit at best
- Musacchio: Not solid enough to build around, Acerbi type of player
- Rodriguez: Fair
- Biglia: Fair, better than Montolivo if anything
- Kessie: At least Kucka had charisma
- Kalinic: Bacca is better even with no motivation
- Borini: A dead case this, since many years on top of that

So they have a "better" team, yes... but at 200 millions you'd at least expect that....
One of the worst mercato i've seen in terms of quality-price ratio. Montella can't do miracles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%E2%80%9317_A.C._Milan_season

Yeah, that squad is head and shoulders above this one in any case

Much better than last year

Last year was one of the luckiest seasons i ever saw, i have no idea how we were 3rd by Christmas (actually i do), we shithoused 90% of our games with 1-0 wins, literally won by the skin of our teeth. So in that respect, i don't know how much credit you can give to Montella, even with those wins we ended up 6th in the end.

Hapless_Hans wrote:There was a point during the summer where the Milan fans got so greedy, people like ES were sniffing at Aubameyang

Now they're playing a duo of Borini and Kalinic, both of whom look like they'd flop so hard at HSV the club would finally get relegated

Aubameyang was begging us to buy him at his Instagram story.

Fassone and Mirabelli should have allocated funds better.

Milan are in the league of former giants as Ajax, Benfica, etc. their best strategy is probably to sign youth players, develope them and sell them to bigger clubs like Man City.

Last year's squad is 1000000% worse than this one. The problem is the chemistry and the coaching. Its not a coincidence that everyone looks worse at Milan than they did before. They shouldn't be winning the league but they also shouldn't be 10th.

For as disjointed as they are, Milan still dominate most matches for long periods on their way to losing. Because they can be better, they just have no working plan. If you copied Inter's blueprint onto this Milan squad you could have good results imo.


Instead of doing all sorts of nonsense like Rodriguez at CB, Suso central, Calhaolgu as mezzala, Silva on the bench, etc. If they kept simple to get going and make everyone work their asses off, its a fine squad to build on.

200m euro is nothing in this age though.

you need at least 1 billion investment to win the league title, be a regular quarterfinal UCL team. City, PSG, Chelsea, Man U, Madrid, Barca, etc. are all billion dollar projects.

yes, 200 millions is not what it used to be, but the poor choice in player is obvious

they could have signed 3-4 top players for that money, not a collection of scrubs and afterthoughts

plus they have poor coaching, look at what Marcelino is doing at Valencia

So many changes it is only natural that time is needed...Milan are kind of like the New York Knicks in the sense that this is a long term project. Can't say I have watched every game, although the games I have tuned in, we aren't getting played off the field.

Glad that we are being discussed again and it has been nice to feel the urge to watch some games. My only hope is that the team continues the slow build and does not make any drastic decisions whilst seeking a short term patch up.

Not a bad team , need a correct formula to get the best out of them. Yet to figure out the best combination.

Things could be much better with better players ? Yes , but this summer there was 8 + new signings. Apart from Bonucci most of them are young. Hope that Montella to better find a solution for the overlooking crisis.

Mr Nick09 wrote:yes, 200 millions is not what it used to be, but the poor choice in player is obvious

they could have signed 3-4 top players for that money, not a collection of scrubs and afterthoughts

plus they have poor coaching, look at what Marcelino is doing at Valencia

spot on

That's why i don't find them much better than last year, feels like a summary of 3 Galliani mercato all at once. They chose quantity over quality.

Aubameyang, Milinkovic-Savic, Bonucci + same squad as last season would have been better than what they have now, for the same price more or less. Fassone & Mirabelli have been deluded to accept Montella's requests. You have a 200M wallet and ask for Musacchio and Kalinic ? Whaaaaat ?

Not so easy to attract such players when there is no European competition. Bonucci was a fluke due to his absolute desire to stay in Italy, his falling out with Juventus (which no one could have predicted), and the ludicrous wages they gave to him. He's the best paid player in the league and that's for a central defender.

We have to look back to Juventus' Conte meracto. There are so many parallels. We signed no big player, not one World Class name. We spent less than half of this Milan. We just had a man to put it together. We looked to Serie A like we mainly do for our signings and like Milan did for many of theirs because there is quality in Italy and a name like Milan still matters. Its the idea that Montella did not put it together. Serie A was also much weaker at the time, compared to now when there are 5 teams of real quality to consider.

It's not all Montella's fault I just think he failed and unfortunately he has to take a lot of the blame because he was the manager responsible for a team that spent this much in the summer.

Juventus has been choosing quantity over quality for quite some time now. It hasn't harmed us yet

Interman wrote:200m euro is nothing in this age though.

you need at least 1 billion investment to win the league title, be a regular quarterfinal UCL team. City, PSG, Chelsea, Man U, Madrid, Barca, etc. are all billion dollar projects.

Milan play in Serie A for 4th place battle, not to win European Superleague

200 are a legit price if you play in Premier League, but for the Serie A is unreal money spent. Never noone is gone close to do it in a single year. This makes the idea of fiasco.

Not fully surpsised though. Not understood the Milanisti hype for the duo Fassone Mirabelli in this summer

Fassone was fired from Juve Napoli Inter, that is enough.
Mirabelli has never made this job , he was just an observer of scrub youth player under us.
Not strange he made a Football manager mercato.

Kucka would be their best midfielder now, surely he is a rich man's Kessie

LUCA

Those 3 players were all available. Aubameyang didn't care about Dortmund and was willing to join. Sergej was locked by Lotito and Juve wasn't willing to bid 70M, but Fassmir could have. Bonucci is a done deal so congrats to them, they took away one of my favourite players... someone whomstvdgbf i now look at with disdain.

About the Milan-Juve parallel, here is my honest opinion.

I think they tried to copy what Juve did in 2011, but things don't work out because they don't have Chiellini, nor Barzagli, nor Buffon. We weren't that good in 2011-2012 but the mercato was based on LOGIC decisons, the foundations were already built and Beppe add the proper flesh around the proper bone. Milan have been all over the place but logic was far from their minds, proof is they satisfied themselves with only Borini on the wing, as if this will suffice in a realistic world. They covered the pile of shit with even more shit and some glitters on top.

Bonucci was the master transfer, but it wasn't even planned in the first place. Wonder who they would have bought instead of him.

Lotito didn't want to sell Sergej last summer, it was made quite clear. Whether he would join Milan isn't even for sure either. Auba would've been an extraordinary price. Milan bid 60M + 2 players to Torino for Belotti and it was not enough. They clearly did not want to make such a financial sacrifice for one player. When a club is not even in the CL, it is difficult to capture these type of players.

Copy is a bit flattering to Juventus but its very clear to see the parallels if you look for them. They tried to do a complete overhaul. You're right, they don't have players with that kind of personality already within the squad -> although I wouldn't credit Barzagli, who was one of the players signed and didn't come until January. The main figure behind Juve's success that season is and always will be Conte.

Like Robes said, it's ridiculous money spent for a team in Serie A, its unprecedented and it was spent poorly. They still managed to improve their squad greatly, which is unquestionable. They've just not done enough, its not a matter of spending more money, it's just spending it better, with better people managing both the transfers and the team itself.

Commentators were saying yesterday how the difference between Milan and Juventus was Higuain. How absurd. Its this perception that one player up top makes the difference. I must have forgot when Higuain led us to 6 scudetti in a row. I must have hallucinated starting Vucinic and Matri in the Champions League against Bayern Munich, which seems like a life time ago. These projects don't come to fruition overnight.

Montella doesn't have the scary eyes, maybe he should practice them in front of the mirror

One player cannot be THE absolute pillar in current stacked Juve, whoever says Higuain is the main difference between both clubs needs to get his eyes and memory verified.

But a player of this caliber (Higuain or Aubameyang or Belotti) would have given a huge boost to Milan's performance. While replacing Kucka by Kessie, is like taking a shit in the woods and then try to put back the feces into anus, if anything. 200 millions worth of dead leaves are still dead leaves.

Mr Nick09 wrote:yes, 200 millions is not what it used to be, but the poor choice in player is obvious

they could have signed 3-4 top players for that money, not a collection of scrubs and afterthoughts

plus they have poor coaching, look at what Marcelino is doing at Valencia

Completely agree with you on this.

Its like when Spurs sold Bale and bought a band of scrubs (save a few) or when Liverpool sold Suarez and bought the entire Southampton team and Balotelli with the money. Difference is we sold the club, not a world class player

Honestly,in hindsight, we should have gone after a big money striker FIRST, then built the team around that

they chose to go with Kessie whos gamble has backfired, Conti who got injured for 6 months, Hakan that came at half price due to his 4 month absence, Bonucci after his fight with Allegri and Co (who looks like the Bonucci that was ridiculed at Juve and not the one we bought) Musacchio who has had very nuanced perforances but looks capable on the ball, and Biglia who can be the player we need but has not been thus far

Rodriguez, Borini, Silva and Kalinic were good buys imho, but if they had gone after a Belotti of Aubu first it might have been different

Another thing: when has a team that has spent this kind of money achieved the kind of inflated results expected after a crazy mercato

the best example for me is Real the summer of their Galacticos with Ronaldo, Kaka, Alonso and others. That team didnt immediately perform and the same thing was said.

even to a large extend Man u took a lot of ridicule before they pathed that over with the Europa league. Liverpool and Tottenham come to mind as well right after Bale and Suarez sales

its going to take more than a new team but an attitude that gets results

the way we have played in our last 2-3 games has been sub-par albeit improved in terms of controlling the play and building up attacks, had Kalinic been a little closer on any of those 3 golden chances he had, we might be saying something different

all in all, if we can go from no excuses to fighting for 6th again, then in the same time, a bit of positive results and momentum could swing things back the other way

i dont expect this to happen but its barely even november and this team still needs to find a balance