It's not the same thing

And aside from very reluctant rumours there hasn't been anything concreet about him linked to us either.

He'd still cost us a decent amount to get him anyway

Sell Abate then (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Why is it not the same thing? Not a direct switch you mean?

I'd want both, not one or the other.

And yeah, it's different from like Pirlo and Seedorf the way we absolutely scalped them in both deals. Buying Santon for 10m+ won't really hurt them since he's not contributing to their team anyway

Well, it would hurt them because they got rid of him so easily.

But if you had to choose either Abate or Santon, who'd you pick?

Abate, no doubt about it

Really? On what grounds?

I think Santon is better. While Abate reached his peak I believe and there's little or no room to improve, Santon is still on a rise. He's younger and can do both sides. I'd pick Santon.

He's a Milan product, I don't think he's reached his peak and in no way is Santon better imo. The only thing he has going for him better than Abate is his age and the fact that he can play both sides, but it's become pretty obvious that he's very comfortable on the left and to move him back to the right wouldn't be smart imo.

To say Santon is better is overreaching. I've seen Abate every week now for 3 seasons straight, he's constantly improving areas of his game, and where last season our only gripe was his end product, this season he's taken a lot of steps in improving that by providing more assists than he had in all the previous seasons combined with us. I've seen Santon enough at Newcastle as well. He's a good player, no doubt, but imo he's just not at Abate's level yet. I've also now seen them both in the same team for Italy playing at the same time. To say Abate outshone Santon last week would be putting it mildly

Haven't seen him with Newcastle but he was much better even at Inter than Abate will ever be. Abate is nothing without his speed.

Better at Inter than Abate ever will be? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

I think you're just biased in this case and still remember the Abate of his first season at Milan and refusing to acknowledge the player he's become

You can't just say everyone who thinks Santon is better than Abate is biased. Biased about what exactly? Santon played for Inter who most people hate, Newcastle who I hate. If we're going to be biased, it's against Santon.

Biased as in he hasn't seen much of Abate to say whether he's good enough or not. Remembering the Abate under Carlo or Leo? Of course that would give a biased oppinion towards Santon because Abate was sh!t back then. I was one of his biggest detractors in fact.

The team a player plays for has no baring on the argument. Santon showed a lot of promise at Inter, fair enough, but to say he was batten then Abate back then is pretty ridiculoud. At least debating the players in the NOW is more realistic

I can't say if Abate is better than Santon, cause I haven't seen Santon play in a very long time. However, I'm with han in that Abate is great for us. I actually think Abate is a very underrated player, and you can determine such when he's out injured and De Sciglio plays instead: the right wing becomes completely inexistent.

Which is why I don't understand your arguement of bias. Why would we put a player down for no reason? People rate who they rate. I'd happily swap Abate for Santon, simple because he is a better player currently and will be a far superior player in the future. I don't know either of them personally, I don't see either of them talk in the media or otherwise, my opinion is based 100% on the field. Not sure where you get this idea that I dislike Abate for no reason.

I'm not biased, I just don't think Abate is a very good player and better than Santon at Inter. No, I have not watched Milan regularly in 2012 but I still watched about a dozen games between last's season second half and this season's first half and have not seen much improvement by Abate. He is better than he used to be but he's still not as good as I think Santon was back at Inter.

In my head, Abate will always be the better defender. In that scudetto winning season, he was just great defensively. While, Santon I don't rate as much defensively. But, then the amount of games I've watched Santon..maybe he's been bad at the ones I've solely watched so it depends.