[Danny]

Every club has this, but as we know, Milan are not every club.

Basically the most illustrious teams in any club's history are usually what fans would describe as a class befitting the club's name. The standard they expect.

For Barca they will always expect Messi/Iniesta/Xavi/Ronaldinho/Eto'o type quality. Won't settle for less now. Man Utd expect Giggs, Van Persie, Ferdinand etc.

For us it's clearly the quality of Maldini, Baresi, Boban, Pirlo, old Kaka, Gullit, MVB etc etc.

Question is will we ever see 'Milan class' again?

Right now we have debatably one player who comes close to being uttered in that kind of breath, Balotelli. And truth is he isn't the finished article, his attitude is often disgraceful and that's now 5 matches we've lost him for through poor conduct.

We have very good players like De Jong (imo arguably one of the top 5 DM's around), Monto (out of form at the moment admittedly) and Kaka (nowhere near convincing anyone he's back to the old Kaka) but other than Balo we basically have no 'Milan class' players at all.

Right now this Milan is a new breed, a team we're not familiar with. We're having to be content with Abate, Mexes, Zapata and DS when it used to be Cafu, Maldini, Nesta and Jankulovski.

Times have changed and it may be decades before the true Milan class returns.

[Danny]

I don't buy the income argument, sorry. AC Milan are the most wealthy sports club in Italy outwith Ferrari. We have a greater turnover than any other sports club in this country and as Kurt rightly puts it due to aforementioned FFP nonsense we'll be able to attract top class players again befitting with the revenue we generate. I must admit I forgot about that little point.

I find your argument R7 incredibly defeatist, negative, and it implies any success prior to Silvio buying us (2 European Cups, 10 Scudettos and a host of of other trophies are nigh-on redundant.

We were still a great name and side back before he bought us and while I admit our most fruitful overall period has been since 86, Associazone Calio Milano were not born that year with new ownership.

As for supporting via finance, I do agree with that - you're supporting the club if you put cash into it. It's just a pity Milan have historically overcharged for its services, rendering purchase as impossible for a great number of fans. There's also no online legal streaming I know of?

[Rossoneri7]

I don't buy the income argument, sorry. AC Milan are the most wealthy sports club in Italy outwith Ferrari. We have a greater turnover than any other sports club in this country and as Kurt rightly puts it due to aforementioned FFP nonsense we'll be able to attract top class players again befitting with the revenue we generate. I must admit I forgot about that little point.

I find your argument R7 incredibly defeatist, negative, and it implies any success prior to Silvio buying us (2 European Cups, 10 Scudettos and a host of of other trophies are nigh-on redundant.

We were still a great name and side back before he bought us and while I admit our most fruitful overall period has been since 86, Associazone Calio Milano were not born that year with new ownership.

As for supporting via finance, I do agree with that - you're supporting the club if you put cash into it. It's just a pity Milan have historically overcharged for its services, rendering purchase as impossible for a great number of fans. There's also no online legal streaming I know of?

Defeatist? Nottingham Forest have a CL trophy, and Leeds UTD was once a 'power house' of English football. Your very own Rangers went into administration. It is a reality one can not grasp unless you look at the numbers. Numbers don't lie.

But look, its fine and dandy if you like to base it all on assumptions Danny. I look at 'audited' financial statements of the club, if only you could take a peak, you will easily understand where I'm coming from.

There really is not a conspiracy, as some would like to have you believe. But then again, some prefer assumptions to audited financial about the situation at the club.

[Jack Bauer]

Defeatist? Nottingham Forest have a CL trophy, and Leeds UTD was once a 'power house' of English football. Your very own Rangers went into administration. It is a reality one can not grasp unless you look at the numbers. Numbers don't lie.

They never were Milan equivalent. We are one of the top clubs in the world, not many can match our titles count and we are a much bigger brand than those clubs you mentioned. Much lesser clubs than us are being bought and invested in all the time in recent years and it will happen to us eventually.

This post has been edited by Jack Bauer: Sep 24 2013, 06:16 PM

[Danny]

They never were Milan equivalent. We are one of the top clubs in the world, not many can match our titles count and we are a much bigger brand than those clubs you mentioned. Much lesser clubs than us are being bought and invested in all the time in recent years and it will happen to us eventually.

We're the biggest club brand on earth bar 8 and that's incredible given we're barely a top 30 club right now in terms of player quality.

[Jack Sparrow]

We're the biggest club brand on earth bar 8 and that's incredible given we're barely a top 30 club right now in terms of player quality.

Hey Dan-O.

The truth is both you and R7 are right.

We're up the creek financially. We truly are. You look at the revenue itself. The honest truth is we're nowhere near the clubs who are better than us.

Now ignore player quality for a moment or league standings. If you take our performance in the last 3 to 4 years in CL as a benchmark for our rough ranking, we're roughly a top 20 club. With a few exceptions, almost all the other clubs earn and spend more than we do.

The reasons for this are many, and not just as simplistic as Berlu not spending.

- We have kept having lesser revenues in the San Siro. Not only is average attendance dropped below 50k (in an 80k stadium), we are also having relatively lesser revenue per ticket (relative to Chelsea, Arsenal etc.)

- The re-negotiated TV deal has kicked us hard in the gonads.

- Even if you want someone to take over the firm, you need to show some kind of positive cashflow.

- I'm still not inclined to blame Galliani competely for the whole mess. He is still imo a great transfer guru...in fact every fan with the exception of Mlianistas admit it. If he has a fault I blame it on too much sentimentality.



Frankly, I want a revolution too. I want this club to be back where it belongs, steamrolling Serie A and taking Europe by the scruff of the neck. For me THAT is Milan class.

I want a team built from the back with unquestionable quality, and probably the strongest spine in World Football. THAT is Milan class.

But I also have to admit that maybe we still require to build some sort of economic foundation before a true revolution can be started.

Things that are non-footballing related that come to mind are:

- Refurbishing San Siro. Inter's own uncertainty on the future hits us there.

- Renegotiating and increasing commercial reach

- Refocusing and re-creating a youth strategy

- Rebuilding the Milan brand as an independent institution.


Now points 2 and 3 are definitely showing progress. The last point imo becomes very important because it seems clear to me that Finninvest under the Berlusca kids have no more interest in AC Milan as a subsidiary. To them it is an albatross to be gotten rid of asap. I don't think bar old Silvio and Barbara there is any interest in it.

At the same time selling something that has a fierce Italian identity is probably also irking the board and I can understand the sentimentality involved.

IMO..we are 3 years into a new project (co-inciding with Allegri's arrival). We will probably take another 2-3 years to achieve the same.

It is roughly the same amount of time Juve took, with the difference being they could make a start hidden away in Serie B, and so the story had a progression to it. Whereas our story rather than one of progression is one of running hard while trying to stay at the same place. It's no surprise this is happening, considering the massive backroom changes involved.


But our playing style under this coach STILL PISSES ME THE FOCK OFF!!! How the hell can we play like we did against Torino!!! Berlusca would have fed his balls to the dogs in the old days!! I want more of what we saw against Napoli. I think we need to shore up that damn backline, so we can afford to play with 2 offensive-minded mids like in the ACTUAL Milan 4-3-1-2.

Imagine if we still had Silva:

Abate---Silva---Mexes---De Sciglio
----Poli----De Jong---Montolivo----
-------------Kaka--------------
---Balotelli---------SeS-----------

[acid911]

Imagine if we still had Silva:

Abate---Silva---Mexes---De Sciglio
----Poli----De Jong---Montolivo----
-------------Kaka--------------
---Balotelli---------SeS-----------

Hands off pirate! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/angry.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/realmad.gif) You gave me a heart attack of sadness! Silva! And the day is still young. Thanks for ruining my day at 10:56 AM. Why in blue blazes did you have to bring Silva into the discussion?! Imagine if we still had Silva indeed. It would be an airtight defense as any!

Abate would be the weakest link here, and that's saying something.