I don't understand.....why? Because he is 16? If the kid proves until January that he can play like he did in the past 4 games (especially like against Atalanta)....than what's the point of buying another GK, especially a #1? It's true that he hasn't faced any adversity yet in terms of conceding goals, mistakes, criticism, etc........but let's wait first before we buy another GK. So far he has proved to be the best GK at Milan....a team that also possesses D. Lopez and Abbiati.
There is a fine line between protecting a young player and completely destroying him/losing him for good. Why did we promote him to the senior team, loaned out Gabriel, and gave him the #1 spot if he wasn't good enough and we didn't believe in him. We didn't have to do that as we have Abbiati here and he could have easily replaced Lopez if Donnarumma wasn't ready and wasn't good enough. Benching him now for someone else, especially after the performances he's had would be really unfair and quite frankly stupid. How is he supposed to (or us as fans) believe in the club's supposed youth movement if he gets benched for no good reason. Age shouldn't be a reason.....especially if the performances are there. The decision of protecting the youngster was made and crossed when we decided to throw him onto the field to replace Diego Lopez especially after a horrible run of results and Mihajlovic was facing the sack. We made that decision and now need to stick to it. Give the kid until January to show what he can do and make an assessment at that time. Benching him after great performances based on age only is not going to protect him.....instead, it's probably going to have some terrible repercussions.
In other news......Mastour made his debut for Malaga over the weekend. He entered the game at the 86th minute. I saw a short video of it and it looked like he only touched the ball twice. Malaga lost 1-0 to Betis. Does anyone know when his contract expires? I know he is there on a 2 year loan and they have the option to buy him for 5mil, while we have a counter option set at 6mil. In other words, if he turns out good, we will basically be paying Malaga 1mil for developing him for us. Where I get confused though is his contract expiration date. I thought that his contract expires in June 2017.....which means that Malaga will be able to sign him for free when his loan expires anyway. Did we extend his contract?....otherwise this deal doesn't make sense to me!
There is a fine line between protecting a young player and completely destroying him/losing him for good. Why did we promote him to the senior team, loaned out Gabriel, and gave him the #1 spot if he wasn't good enough and we didn't believe in him. We didn't have to do that as we have Abbiati here and he could have easily replaced Lopez if Donnarumma wasn't ready and wasn't good enough. Benching him now for someone else, especially after the performances he's had would be really unfair and quite frankly stupid. How is he supposed to (or us as fans) believe in the club's supposed youth movement if he gets benched for no good reason. Age shouldn't be a reason.....especially if the performances are there. The decision of protecting the youngster was made and crossed when we decided to throw him onto the field to replace Diego Lopez especially after a horrible run of results and Mihajlovic was facing the sack. We made that decision and now need to stick to it. Give the kid until January to show what he can do and make an assessment at that time. Benching him after great performances based on age only is not going to protect him.....instead, it's probably going to have some terrible repercussions.
In other news......Mastour made his debut for Malaga over the weekend. He entered the game at the 86th minute. I saw a short video of it and it looked like he only touched the ball twice. Malaga lost 1-0 to Betis. Does anyone know when his contract expires? I know he is there on a 2 year loan and they have the option to buy him for 5mil, while we have a counter option set at 6mil. In other words, if he turns out good, we will basically be paying Malaga 1mil for developing him for us. Where I get confused though is his contract expiration date. I thought that his contract expires in June 2017.....which means that Malaga will be able to sign him for free when his loan expires anyway. Did we extend his contract?....otherwise this deal doesn't make sense to me!