Calhanoglu?

Well, don't be a lazy bum. Post your formation so Danny, han and I can fap to it OR call it shite! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Happy fapping.

This looks pretty solid to me. Young players who have pretty good amount of experience, some grit in Kessie and Biglia with nice playmaking further up and plenty of free kick options.

Random but if anyone is interested, Maldini is playing pro tennis tomorrow in the Milan open or something. It's on the Challenger tour and he's playing mixed doubles.

Just in case anyone fancies seeing a Milan legend playing in a completely different sport.

You think? Even just after you posted the timeline? No man, I believe it's somewhere around 50-50 for the blame. The kid isn't evidently as bright as talented and he's slipping from one mistake into another.



Not exactly a fan of Çalhanoğlu. IMO he's a moody and lazy player whose prime talent is shooting free kicks. Also, he comes out of a four or five month suspension. He might still do the trick for us, but I'm very unsure.

Regarding Kucka, apparently we were offered 4 to 5m but it's far away from our demands...

My initial thoughts on this were, "take it and f@cking run!!!" But I like the fact that they're playing hardball with the players we have (but want to get rid of) Kucka would be a decent addition to any Turkish side and the big ones have the money, so yeah, if we can milk them for a bit more, I say do it.

I'm getting a bit worried about the outgoing players, we need to ship off some players pronto. Niang's move to Everton is only awaiting his approval apparently, but the mediocre f@cker is waiting on Arsenal. Like they would even consider his sub-par @ss! We should give him some sort of ultimatum so we cna get that EPL dough in the coffers.

Right now, I think we can get good money from the players we're looking to sell, I just want to see us accelerate some of these moves so we can make our own moves in the market


Agreed, I'm so over this high school level drama for him. Stay or go, I don't care, but at least we should try to get good cash for him, this summer or next, which is why his renewal is still important imo


Not fap-worthy for me.

I still think that squad is missing something, I honestly don't know much about the Hakan dude, but from the vids I watched of him, he reminded me a lot of Bona with better long range shots. I personally think that if we're going for this sort of formation the AM should be top class.

Also, Biglia and Kessia are both very good players, but I think that for us to truely make the jump in quality we need to make, we need someone of a higher calibre in our midfield


The whole saga just reaked of agent over-management to me. I think Donna is definately at fault and is the major culprit here because he's allowed his agent to do this and in the end the final word should be his. But in terms of the media fiasco, it's mostly all on Raiola. And even that tweet from Donna, just like the Pogba one just reaked of Raiola's influence

Not convinced by Calhanoglu either tbh. I think he'd be a great add to the squad, but certainly not someone I'd build the team around

Can't disagree. When I saw that XI it struck me - 'different doesn't mean better'. Don't get me wrong, it can't be a lot worse, but there's a lot of underwhelming players in there. It's not the scintillating upgrade over last season I am looking for. I also don't want Suso, which doesn't help.

That said, I still feel we have not yet made THE signing this summer. We've brought in good players, some very good players - I'm happy with Rodriguez and Kessie, but I'm less sure about Musacchio and Silva. But none of these are the marquee signings we need to become a UCL team.

I don't think a single transfer window would resolve all our problems. Also if our target is top 4, the names that are being talked of should suffice.

Oddly for me, Kessie and Silva are the players I'm okay with, while the two defenders I'm mostly suspicious of.

I think there's an obvious improvement in the quality don't get me wrong. The fact that we played with Kucka, Sosa and Pasalic in midfield last season, with Poli, Berto and Loca alternating says it all. Biglia and Kessie are miles better than any of those, with Loca being the obvious stand out who can only just be considered a talent as of now.

But imo, it's still not enough and we could really be risking that CL place if we go in with that team as there is no obvious match winner who you can rely on with you eyes closed.

Personally, I think all of our signings so far were smart shrewd moves. Kessie imo has a great future ahead of him, he's great defensively, an absolute physical presence in midfield but he's also great at making late runs into the box, has a great long range shot and has shown that he can pitch in with a few amount of goals from midfield as well. Rodirguez and Musacchio were no brainers. Rodriguez is great on both sides of the pitch, he's versatile and a great crosser, not to mention a dead ball specialist as well while Musacchio was part of the 2nd best defence is Spain and has played against the best in the game. He might need a little time to adapt to Serie A and to playing next to Romagnoli but that's the beauty of bringing in these crucial players early, so they'll have the full pre-season under their belts before the season starts.

I think this is the main plan atm, they're working to bring in the backbone of the team before pre-season or as early into it as possible. That's why they've signed all the defenders first (Conti rumoured to be done this week) and some of the mids as well. They'll probably make a couple of squad rotation signings and a marquee type signing later on in the summer

As for Silva, I think this kid will be big. I've made a point of watching him with Portugal in the Confed cup, and he's impressed me a lot. Definitely has that touch of class about him that we've sorely lacked in attack for a while now.

The only rumoured signing that I think could be a mistake is if we get Kalinic for the quoted amount. That would simply be a bad move imo.


I still think that with the squad x-off posted we'd be risking it a bit. It's not a sure fire top 4 side, especially if we start off a bit slow considering we'd basically have a completely new team out on the pitch next season

He looks very gifted on the ball and seems to have great vision. I think he would be a good choice.



Don't be greedy, Han. That line-up is another universe compared to what we've been used to in the past few years. I think it's very balanced with every player positioned where they can perform at the best of their abilities.

My only gripe would be Biglia. Still not sold 100% on him. I'd rather have someone like Roma's Paredes instead.

It is, but then so are Atalanta at present and they're not UCL either.

And we've signed one of their players to make us better.

We're still a wee bit off for me, I don't see that as strong as even Napoli.

Not for me. He's a Acerbi, a Mesbah - he got a decent chance last season because of just how chronic we were in midfield and still didn't impress enough. I don't think he's a Milan player. Ever.

But I do agree about Kessi over the three you've mentioned - I don't know Biglia as well, and we haven't signed him anyway so it's moot.



That's my gripe - we haven't made one special signing yet who can take us from potential to reality.



I'm concerned about the Romag and Musacchio pairing. I think it's too young overall. Who's the leader in there? Romag has led the defence and he's now to be the beta? Or is he staying the alpha to a near-27 year old?



I've barely watched any Confed Cup, but I do know Rangers' new signing Bruno Alves has strolled defence for them. As well I should know - he shut Milan out singlehandedly for Cagliari at San Siro earlier this season. I'll watch the semi tomorrow and pay attention to him and Silva. Hopefully the latter will really impress.



I'd mention us having Bacca and not needing Kalinic at all but we got into a fight last time (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Paredes is definitely no where near Biglia atm, sure he's talented but I don't think he'd be good enough for us to rely on him to be the regista.

Plus he's on his way to Zenit, so that should say a lot about his ambitions. I can't believe him and Manolas are going there. We should have totally tried for Manolas since Roma wanted to sell him, Great CB imo.

As for not being greedy. I don't know if I am being so, but I just don't want to see us wasting 20m+ on someone like Kalinic for example, or even this Hakan dude when I'd rather it be spent on a proper top CM rather than an AM who's unproven. I think we've made great moves so far, but wasting so much money on Kalinic would be a mistake.


Atalanta were a revelation this year, and there's a reason why all the top clubs literally jumped on their players this summer. Gagliardini, Caldara, Kessie, Conti and Gomez were all excellent.

And Napoli atm are miles ahead of us, the team I can see us overtaking is Roma, they're selling up this summer, so this is a great opportunity for us to try and get ahead of them


You mean Locatelli? Totally disagree if you're comparing him to those 2. I definitely think he has potential

Biglia is great imo. He's not the top notch CM we truly need to make that big jump we need to make but he's an excellent player none-the-less. Great tackler, very good long/short range passer and a great leader on the pitch as well, which is what we've been missing for a while


Hopefully that one really big signing can come, although the fact that we don't have CL football will be working against us


Musacchio is definitely the more experienced of the two and if I'm not mistaken he's also worn the armband at Villareal at times as well. So he's definitely got leadership qualities in him. Also, I don't agree that a defence should have an alpha and a beta. You can have two alphas and it would be an even better pairing, the only problem is when you have two betas.

Still, I don't think Romagnoli has reached 'Alpha' status just yet


Watch for his movement in particular, both on and off the ball. He's a very smart player and just works his @ss off for the team


Bacca would not want to sit on the bench. Plus he has big wages and would be even more unmotivated than he was last season If he was used as a backup.

Best thing to do with Bacca is to move him on ASAP.

Personally, I'd rather keep Lapa and concentrate all our time and resources on building a really good midfield for next season. We can think about upgrading the backup striker the following season, but for now, it's pointless to waste so much money to bring in someone who will mostly be used as backup when Lapa can do a good job coming off the bench

I've never seen a great defence which had two alphas and which worked. You'll need to refresh my memory.

Look how bad Mexes and Alex was for us. You need a Nesta and Silva, a Maldini and Nesta, a Baresi and Maldini. Always need one leader and one follower - if you're both leading, which one gets the final call?

Can't think of many great defences at all which went with two alphas and succeeded that way.

Still with this alpha-beta argument. If both defenders are good there's no problem to worry about.