Summer Mercato 2011

[Ca Rossonero]

Preziosi has said Merkel will play a lot for genoa, which is why Galliani agreed to it. We all agree Merkel has potential to be a big fixture in our midfield for future, but he's only 19... he needs regular first team football, and not become a waste like we see with soo many talents in serie A.

Hope he does well and he takes clarence's spot next year.

Excited about El Shaarawy. He's actually versatile enough to play on wings too. I imagine he'll see some time at CAM (behind whoever we sign as "Mr. X") and then he can also play on wing (he often did in 4-3-3)

so in a sense we could use a robinho--pato--el shaarawy forward line v. smaller teams and have say fabregas/ganso/hamsik/whoever we get in CM w/ 2 more defensive minded mids (like van bommel and gattuso)

He's a huge talent and to be able to do what he did in serie B is impressive. Serie B is not easy, they are all professionals and defensive. It's about as tough as most south american leagues (minus copa libertadores obviously which is best of the besT). But yeah your average Serie B team is on par with your average midtable brazilian or argentine side. (obviously not someone like a Santos or Velez)

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I still have my hopes we sign 2 mids... 1 big purchase (Ganso, Fabregas or Hamsik) and maybe one more modest one like aquilani who would provide perfect link at LCM between seedorf and merkel (aquilani is 27... in 4-5 years, merkel will fully replace him).

CAM: Fabregas, El Shaawary, Seedorf, Boateng
RCM: Boateng, Gattuso, Flamini
LCM: Aquilani, Seedorf, Fabregas,
DM: Van Bommel, Ambrosini

I actually like the balance of creative, workers, exerience and youth. But yeah 9 mids is a lot...