AC Milan Thread - Montella Replaced By Gattuso

[ScoRoss]

With the mismanagement of Milan since their last league title, it was always going to take more than one summer to magically turn them around. They still have a horribly uneven squad with a real lack of any depth to it. This is a club that allowed Mattia De Sciglio to leave for a rival, after letting his contract run down, and then were held to ransom by Donnarumma after not sorting his future earlier.

The entire structure of the club needs to change before they can point the entire blame at Montella. This includes the attitude of the supporters as well. The immediate demand for success is ridiculous. Over 60,000 at the Europa League qualifying match, but only 13,000 midweek for the group stage game. They expected to be competing with Napoli and Juventus straight away, it hasn't happened and they've lost interest.

[ScoRoss]

 

[Dalmore]

Bonucci is having such a shitty season so far. He was just sent off in the game against Genoa in San Siro for throwing a punch on a Genoa player.

[ScoRoss]

1 hour ago, Dalmore said:

Bonucci is having such a shitty season so far. He was just sent off in the game against Genoa in San Siro for throwing a punch on a Genoa player.

Going to be suspended for the game against Juventus now. Not what you need from a captain. With VAR, how did he expect not to be punished?

[Stan]

That is fucking nasty from Bonucci.

35 minutes ago, ScoRoss said:

 

Going to be suspended for the game against Juventus now. Not what you need from a captain. With VAR, how did he expect not to be punished?

How convenient!

[Chaaay AFC]

@SirBalon your prediction for AC Milan not looking to shabby in the early part of the season. 

I have to agree with you though, Milan's business in recent years has been all about the name.

[Spike]

Bonucci can't hack the pressure of being the main man.

[SirBalon]

3 hours ago, Chaaay AFC said:

@SirBalon your prediction for AC Milan not looking to shabby in the early part of the season. 

I have to agree with you though, Milan's business in recent years has been all about the name.

Mate... It’s nothing genius! 

How many times has this been seen before? It’s happened time and time again and this one was easy in my opinion.

Too much focus is put on transfers these days. Yes it’s true bringing in quality is important to add competition to a strong side. But buying in bulk hardly ever works and it also has negative effects on a squad. First it tells those already there that the new boys will take their place as starters (no competition) and secondly it gives too much protagonism to those coming in like they’re untouchable.

That and various other things like, did the coach ask for these players and do they fit into the way he wants the team to play. All the work he’s previously done can go down the pan in one month. 

[ScoRoss]

12 minutes ago, SirBalon said:

First it tells those already there that the new boys will take their place as starters (no competition) and secondly it gives too much protagonism to those coming in like they’re untouchable.

Take out the players they bought and they don't even have enough players for a team. 😂

The damage for AC Milan was done over the past five years, not over the past five months. It's not as simple as you believe as I doubt you have an understanding of Milan's ongoings in recent years.

[Spike]

AC Milan isn't a complicated story. They tried being frugal with transfer fees and got fucked with high wages and mediocre players, which led to Champions League absence, which only lowered the quality of players; then they get mega rich and throw a team together without any focus. High player turnover, high manager turnover; I'd even venture to say that Giacomo Bonaventura, Ricardo Montolivo, and Ignazio Abate are the onyl player that have been with the club for more than three seasons.

[ScoRoss]

You're all looking at this after nine league games. Football fans are so fickle that this is a failure already!

They are trying to build a younger team, not rely on the likes on Poli, Kucka and Sosa who were regulars last season.

They were truly appalling at the end of the season and somehow Montella scraped them into the Europa League.

[Spike]

I'm looking at it after a couple of hundred cuz they've been shite for that long. Where's the focus? Buying one of best three-defence CBs in the world and tossing him into a two-man pairing? No long identity in that, just a knee-jerk for a class player being available. They are just going through the growing pains of new money, they'll be fine in a season or two unless the money  pulls out.

[ScoRoss]

So you agree that the old regime are far more to blame than people lazily blaming Massimo Mirabelli?

They are merely have to start over and actually put a squad together for a long time, rather than the bandaid approach that had been going on for years.

[SirBalon]

1 hour ago, ScoRoss said:

Take out the players they bought and they don't even have enough players for a team. 😂

The damage for AC Milan was done over the past five years, not over the past five months. It's not as simple as you believe as I doubt you have an understanding of Milan's ongoings in recent years.

I definitely don't have a full understanding of AC Milan inside and out mate, not at all and I have never pretended to have it.  My comment back in the summer as you well know was simply based on their transfer window and the amount of new players they brought in, changing everything they were last season.  As for the fact they wouldn't have had a full squad had they not bought those players, well they had a full squad last season and what that means is that they let players go which is normal when you invest heavily in this manner.

I have nothing at all against AC Milan and my comments are just an observation and my prediction was based on having seen that sort of thing before.  Let's see what happens next summer because if they suddenly believe the problem was not bringing in enough, then we could be in for a ridiculous ending to all of this and throwing away a lot of money.

[Spike]

2 minutes ago, ScoRoss said:

So you agree that the old regime are far more to blame than people lazily blaming Massimo Mirabelli?

They are merely have to start over and actually put a squad together for a long time, rather than the bandaid approach that had been going on for years.

That is what I said in my first post. New money always does this; it's nothing unusual. The spending gets a little stupid, good players are brought that don't necessarily fit and the team plays below the quality of it's parts.

[ScoRoss]

1 minute ago, Spike said:

That is what I said in my first post. New money always does this; it's nothing unusual. The spending gets a little stupid, good players are brought that don't necessarily fit and the team plays below the quality of it's parts.

It's been nine games! 😂 They didn't bring in these players for just now, they brought them in for the long term. They may not be a fluid team right now but with the nature of top level football as it is now, and the constant games and international breaks, any manager hasn't had enough time to put the team fully together.

Their defeats have come against the best sides in Italy, it's not like they've struggled against poor teams.

[Spike]

Just now, ScoRoss said:

It's been nine games! 😂 They didn't bring in these players for just now, they brought them in for the long term. They may not be a fluid team right now but with the nature of top level football as it is now, and the constant games and international breaks, any manager hasn't had enough time to put the team fully together.

Their defeats have come against the best sides in Italy, it's not like they've struggled against poor teams.

That is what I said.

[ScoRoss]

7 minutes ago, SirBalon said:

As for the fact they wouldn't have had a full squad had they not bought those players, well they had a full squad last season and what that means is that they let players go which is normal when you invest heavily in this manner.

Go back and look at their squad last season. It's an embarrassment of a team. Milan were loaning in bench players from other teams.

Sosa, Kucka, Poli, Montolivo, Paletta... All getting regular game time. They definitely didn't deserve to get another chance at it again.

[SirBalon]

Just now, ScoRoss said:

Go back and look at their squad last season. It's an embarrassment of a team. Milan were loaning in bench players from other teams.

Sosa, Kucka, Poli, Montolivo, Paletta... All getting regular game time. They definitely didn't deserve to get another chance at it again.

Yeah, Milan have been terrible for a number of years now and it was a few players like Suso that were saving them most of the time.

Obviously they need rebuilding, I said that back in the summer.  But that's not the way to do it in my view although they're not the first to come into money and do it in this manner.  Look at Valencia...  After almost 5 years since the takeover, it's only now seeming to be looking like normality has returned in the playing stakes.  But it's taken a hell of a lot of errors and stupid amounts of money thrown all over the place.

[ScoRoss]

So if their current players were awful and they can't buy anyone... How are they supposed to improve?

[SirBalon]

20 minutes ago, ScoRoss said:

So if their current players were awful and they can't buy anyone... How are they supposed to improve?

What was their key issue last season?

Whatever that was, that should've been addressed first and foremost with an addition or two and holding onto the squad.  They acted like they'd been handed someone's stolen credit card and before anyone finds out, quickly spend as much as you can on all sorts.

[ScoRoss]

8 hours ago, SirBalon said:

What was their key issue last season?

Whatever that was, that should've been addressed first and foremost with an addition or two and holding onto the squad.

So you do think that they should reward mediocre players with more game time, just because they were apready there last season? You're starting to sound like Arsene Wenger!

They had to have an injection of talent from somewhere this summer. They have let the squad age and decline. Look at the amount of player over 30 that they had last year in their squad compared to the lack of players in the 23-27 bracket. They needed players brought in to build a long term team. 

Everyone else was investing in their squad this summer and was getting better (apart from Monchi at Roma who decided to sell off their starters and buy in backup players... But that's a separate issue). If they started this season with the same team of last season, they'd struggle mightily.

[Stan]

Do Milan know how to score? 4 out of their last 5 games, 6 out of their last 10, they've failed to hit the back of the net. Quite concerning for them.

[ScoRoss]

They had a decent performance against Juventus last weekend but, unfortunately for them, they had Kalinić up front and Juventus had Higuaín. In reality, he was a panic buy for them. They identified Andrea Belotti from Torino as their striker preference. He's probably one of the best young strikers in the world at the moment, and that's why Torino were unwilling to part with him for less than at least €80 million. Kalinić was the cheaper option at 'only' €25 million, but it may prove more costly in the long term.

The constant changing of formations and teams can't have helped either. They need to stick with a shape and work on improving it rather than radically changing when it doesn't work perfectly. In the midweek match, although a much changed team, it showed their complete lack of any depth and quality in wide areas.

[Spike]

AC Milan is the last place I want to see Belotti. I hope Torino keeps their momentum.