Summer mercato 2012

[ACMILAN1983]

Louis Nicollin isn't stupid, he knows his player isn't worth that amount of money, but he made his name on his relation with medias, always talking trash (including about his players sometimes) when he doesn't like something. If he says he won't sell, he won't.
His club doesn't need money, and they won the title surprisingly, it's a bit like if Sampdoria was to win Serie A in 2013/2014 ... Their goal for this season is to keep growing by being in Top 5 (which can be confusing as they are champions, but again, it was a big surprise).

I saw several people saying our reputation is ruined, etc ... because of the comments of Nicollin. Just try to read some of his comments over the last few years and you will understand this guy has no respect for other clubs (or at least, he doesn't show it that much) and tends to say what he thinks.

Anyway, I watched 20 minutes of the half against Inter yesterday, and if our best transfers were some Primavera players being used in first team during the season ? Some showed good level and they could be very useful.
El Sharaawy made me think about Pato ... I don't know if it's me, but I thought he had grown and was more muscular compared to 2 months ago !! That's weird, I remembered ELS being short and lightweight, and yesterday, he looked powerful. Just tell me if it is because I was tired or if anybody else thought the same thing ...

Would you say he's like Zamparini Geo? I mean in the sense that they both make big statements to the press which makes them look difficult to deal with, but ultimately they will happily work out a deal if the money they want comes their way.

This leads me to a second point, if he is this way (like Zamparini) and he's prepared to sell Mbiwa, then 9-12m should be enough to get him imo. He generally seemed to be valued at around 8-9m prior to recent stories, while we've apparently offered 6m. We ALWAYS start off lower than market value when negotiating and the statements from Nicollin are ones usually made to boost the value of a player. Wanting 42m or 18m doesn't mean it'll happen, but it does get this transfer in the press, with alleged interest from Arsenal and Fenerbache to be wary of. Press awareness automatically drives his value up as done competition amongst buyers, meaning in theory it wouldn't be shocking if they were looking at trying to get around 15m for him. However, with him only having 1 year left on his contract, this does weaken their bargaining position and so I think we can look to secure him for around 10m.

I wanted to ask you Geo about your thoughts on Mbiwa. I know Blanc essentially rates him highly, but do you think he's a good signing for us? I've not really watched him, so can't say much.

Call me crazy if you'd like, but I just don't think we should spend any money on a forward. We have 4 (Pato, ELS, Robinho, Cassano), and if we want a 5th one then just promote one from our youth sector. That's how you groom players for the next level. I agree that Pato is unreliable because of his injury situation and that Cassano can't last form more then 50 mins. I also agree that Robinho's finishing is terrible and that ELS is just starting his career. However, for some reason I still don't see our forwards as the problem. And if we want a more reliable forward (Teves....etc, whoever that may be), then we need to let go of one of the 4 that we already have.

What we need to invest in, is our midfield. That's clear (at least in my opinion) and obvious. After watching the TIM cup, (i know it's only a useless friendly at the beginning of preparations with a ton of players missing.....but still..) it is clearly evident that the problem that we've had in the midfield in the last few years is still there. And to be honest, I didn't expect that to be fixed with additions such as Traore and Constant. There is absolutely NO creativity in our midfield. Our midfielders aren't even comfortable to keep the ball under the smallest amount of pressure let alone being able to cope with the high pressing fast paced top European teams. I think if you put a "ball confident" and creative midfield behind ELS/Pato/Robinho/Cassano then the forwards will be fine. But ever since Ibra and Cassano....it seems like the club wants the forwards to do the creating and scoring while the midfield will do the running like headless chickens.

All of our midfield is the SAME exact players. Maybe they don't all play the same exact way....maybe some of them do certain things better then the other....however they are all the same type of players. Flamini, Traore, Ambrosini, Constant, Muntari, Nocerino. All the same players. We do NOT need 3 of them on the field. We need ONE of those players on the field. Where is the creativity? Where is the clever movement? Who will play the channels? Who will dribble around opponents to shift defenses and open spaces? There is none of that in our midfield. Boateng comes close to it.....but we need more. Montolivo is a great player I think, but he is not enough. We need a creator. A number 10. Someone that will make things happen from the midfield. And IMO, that's what we need to splash money on.

What is the point of bringing Traore here?? He may be a decent player. he may do his job very well in fact. However we already had plenty of players that can do the same exact job. I just don't get it. If we can't sign a player that will give us a real jump in quality, then why sign someone in the first place? So they can "steal" precious minutes from guys like Valoti/Carmona/Cristante? I would rather see them play and develop. They've shown that they have the talent and potential necessary to do well. We just need to show some trust in them, otherwise we'll never see our academy flourish. I really don't know why we give contracts to guys like Traore/Constant wen we have talented youngsters. Again, this isn't a knock on Traore/Constant as I think they are solid players, especially Constant (haven't seen enough of Traore although it's clear that he is not someone that will transform our midfield). However just solid is not enough. We need to show trust in our youngsters and develop them into "solid" players with the hope that some turn out much more then that....and in the mean time save the cash/wages for players that can take us to another level should they be available.

At the moment, we have 10 midfielders listed in the squad. 2 of them are long term injuries (Muntari, Strasser)....the other 8 are Ambrosini, Constant, Traore, Flamini, Nocerino, Emanuelson, Montolivo and Boateng.
With this midfield......you can bring me any forward (except for 3-4 in the world, we had one in our team) and they will struggle. Add to that the fact that our fullbacks are sh!t going forward (very important as we play with a formation that relies on its FB to provide width and participate in most attacks)....and I don't see how our forwards, or others for that matter, can be effective game in game out consistently throughout a season.

So if you ask me, we need midfielders. Midfielders that can boss the game with the ball in their feet. I would take care of that first before I even think of a forward. Then comes a LB (even though it sucks that we can't get rid of Taiwo and Mesbah), and then a CB (even though I think we should give Acerbi a chance).

I know I'm repeating many things that have already been said, but I felt like I needed to vent since I haven't posted in a while. But believe me, milanmania is the main screen on my phone and computer and I hit refresh at least 20 times a day to check on news.

Forza Milan as always!!!!!
We'll be back as strong as ever!


edit: Also.....sorry for the long post! Just realized what I have done!! haha

lol, great to see you posting again nefremo.

About the forwards, I think you pretty much made clear why we need one top level forward. Pato's fitness questions, El Sharaawy's lack of experience, Cassano's fitness questions and Robinho's inability to finish. We don't have a single figure in attack who we can look to rely on for the duration of a year at the moment.

In midfield, I'm generally quite positive about our midfield. What we saw in the TIM trophy is probably nothing close to a true representative of how our midfield will look come September. I can understand the frustration about Traore, but until now I must admit he's done better than I had expected, while we've not yet seen Constant (don't forget, this guy was really impressive at Chievo not too long ago). We're still expecting Nocerino and Montolivo to come back, both of who combined will raise the quality of our midfield to another level to what we saw on Saturday. I agree we need creativity, which is why I think it's integral we look at possible registas (a guy like Sahin for example, although if possible Joao Moutinho is a player I'd love) on the market, rather than a traditional solid DM for in front of defence. However, you add these 3 guys as expected and you'll see a totally different face to the side.

This isn't accounting for guys like Boateng and Urby, who in their own way add creativity and stability through the side. As for youngsters, I wrote a post last Friday detailing why I think it's important to integrate youngsters into the first team squad, not just in addition to it. In this regard, I agree with you. we have guys like Traore and Flamini, but I don't see what they're offering that makes them integral, especially when we need to look to give guys like Valoti or Carmona room.