Just what I thought, Will. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) Not outside the real of possibility, but come on, €1 billion to buy the club, and then further investments in players and all that? If it were any of the other rich Gulf countries, or maybe even Far East, then it would have been a slightly more plausible scenario.

Then again, the way things are heading, we may not be far off from a sale. Cheers for the confirmation, though!

Said Barca fans before they spent £75M on Suarez.



Yes we did. We rested on our laurels.



Nesta was 198 and on his way out and Thiago needed a foil. Mexes was a poor signing by those standards.



So we had one certain world class striker, one guy with talent but questionable temperament, a failed Brazilian dud, another who couldn't stay fit, and SES who was 3 years old.

Not that convincing.



I far more object to post-2011.

Who cares about Barça. If you thought we could have spent that much money you're way over your head.



Err, no, I disagree. A couple of quality midfielders would have been enough.



Nesta had one more season left in him. Mexes was signed as his eventual replacement, which at the time seemed about right. Mexes-Thiago would have been a very good pairing.



We're talking post-Scudetto summer here. Ibra, Robinho and Pato had each scored 14 goals in the league, and Cassano had been great in his first six months for us. I consider that convincing.

More buyer rumors: Carlos Sim, Mexican billionaire, second richest person in the world according to Forbes. Repubblica (Italian newspaper) claim it's a credible rumor.

In regards to the coach, Montella is the main candidate for next season.

Link

Beat me to it, X. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Things take a turn for the interesting, then!

Some people did. R7 for example.

We signed Ibra and Silva (for a €10 million fee). Robinho was, in Tennie's word "poision" and marked as "get rid" material, whereas Boateng came via Genoa which was a sign of weakness. Every other move we made was a sign that we're heading into a dark place. Finivest above all was the definitive sign.

But we stopped making big mash-ups long before. The last truly Milanesque signing campaign was about 01/02. Afterwards the Shevchenkos and Kakas of Milan were sold, and in came the Oliveiras and Ronaldinhos (past prime).

On the other hand, products like Darmian, Antonelli, Marzorati, Verdi, Paloschi, etc. struggled to get a spot in the team or showed little signs of being actually worthy of consideration. And Milan, like all great teams, had to rely on their youth. Look at all great long-lasting clubs (bar Madrid perhaps, but that's also debatable). Look at how Bayern became strong and top again: when? After they lost players like Effenberg, Kahn, Linke, Scholl etc. they had to wait and grow the likes of Müller, Schweini, Kroos, etc. No different with Barcelona, where Sergi, Guardiola, Amor, Abelardo got replaced by Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta.

So, to be great, you have to invest and to grow your own trademark talents. Milan did that in 1994 in the midst of a crisis. They did this also earlier ago when they introduced players like Albertini, Coco, Boban, etc. It was majorly important that veterans like Baresi had young players like Maldini; they could pass the torch.

Already in 2007 I was nagging about how we do not have the youngster and fresh material, players who could have "receive" the torch. MDS came to late, Silva didn't stay as long as we wished.

All in all, my point is - do you know what the last truly emotional Milan thing for me was? When Inzaghi scored his last goal in his last match. A pretty fine goal as well. Now, to have one more season (Inzaghi was really finished, like Rino, so no debate on this) with Clarence or Ambro instead of the drag queen Aquilani or God forbid Muntari/Essien...well, I wouldn't object.

I get your point, but I don't think I fully agree. You try to dismiss those signings I mentioned, but Silva cost us €10 million, Ibra cost us €24 million, Robinho cost us €18 million, Boateng cost us around €12 million if I recall correctly if not more. That's €45 million, a sum nowadays we don't even dream of spending. Then let's not forget the relatively high price we paid for El Shaarawy the following summer. We could spend, at the time it looked like it, so the senators leaving seemed more like getting rid of a burden then a problem. Who would have thought that only one year later we would completely dismantle our entire roster, sell our best players, "start from scratch" and lower our ambitions to 3rd place/EL placing? Skeptics, like R7, yes. But rationally it was a big shock for everyone.

No arguing about the youth system, though. Totally agreed there.

Meh. Usual leaks of promise then Berlu once again says NOT SELLING!

You make it sound like we splashed €45 million in one summer. Yet things are different. We signed Silva for €10 million in 2009. It was the same year that Huntelaar joined Milan for for €15 million, but we earned about €80 million by selling Kaka and Gourcuff, which puts this in another perspective entirely. Then next year we got a co-ownership with Genoa over Boateng, Ibrahimović was signed for a total of €24 million but spread around over few years. Robinho came in, as you mentioned for 18. That year we also got €10m for Borriello.

So all in all, we spent as much as we earned from big transfers like Kaka or good deals like Gourcuff and Borriello. As soon as we stopped having superstars like Kaka or Sheva who could be easily sold for a mega amount, we stopped investing bigger money. Silva and Ibra were our last big cash-ins.

R7 isn't just a skeptic, he knows the economic point of Milan better then you and I. But it was foreseeable. To put it very simple: Milan stopped producing talent and at the same time, went economically broke. So it had to happen. People naively thought that by getting rid of the senators we would get space for new players. But the problem is, those players weren't half as good as they seemed. I remember how people drooled over Montolivo, Aquilani, etc. How some of the posters here declared, in a most celebratory fashion, how things will be better when we get rid of Pirlo, Ambro, Rino, Nesta.

But the problem was always there, always evident: Milan went broke, Serie A changed and the "talented" players like Constant or Montolivo proved to be less of a success then expected. In the end, it has much to do with the fact that we easily say this or that player should come or go, while we rarely think through it or have the conscience to admit our mistake.

I think you're under playing the negative contribution that keeping those senators had on our bottom line. Their exorbinate contracts were a crucial contributing factor in the economic decline we experienced. Obviously there were other structural and national economic issues that also contributed but the fact is that there were many senators who were making large sums and not producing on the field. Were we not stuck with those large contracts there could have been more money available to go after truly great players and we wouldn't have been reduced to the Constants of the world. This is easier to see in hindsite but Galliani made a massive blunder when he doubled down on aging stars whose on field contributions cratered not long after their paydays.

You're right about Silva, I forgot we signed him the prior summer.

Again, I get your point, but personally speaking I would have never, ever thought things would degrade to such pitiful levels. The summer we signed Aquilani we were aiming to get Hamsik. Remember the notorious Mister X? Obviously De Laurentiis wanted big cash, so in the end we lied and said our target had been Aqua all along. But we had still an ounce of ambition. We were Italian champions, had a pretty good team and were fighting for the Scudetto.

And in all honesty, I don't think anyone ever wanted Pirlo or Nesta out of this team. I only criticized Rino for his last season, which was by all means terrible. Then guys like Ambro and Seedorf were cutting 37. They weren't producing enough anymore, so it's understandable why some people didn't consider them vital or important. It's easy to talk in hindsight, but I repeat, before that diabolic 2012 summer, not one rational Milan fan would have guessed we would succumb to where we are nowadays. At least that's my take on it.

He's Lebanese btw.(hence that older rumor perhaps..)

This post has been edited by William405: Mar 3 2015, 08:34 PM

Ha, good catch.

At the time those were good signings. One was to shore up an already top class CB area, the other a move for the future.

No one would have expected that just a few months later the management would turn around and sell off all our best assets.

Exactly.