[Danny]

Spending 250M Euros is nothing in football any more. When only five years ago spending such sums would be considered fantasy football, now it’s a pretty modest amount of money.

The fact the world had a giggle over Neymar costing what he did rather than being absolutely outraged was a result of it not being bothered by Ronaldo, Kaka, Bale, Suarez, Pogba etc etc.

The harsh reality is it’s not how much you spend, it’s what on. If Everton can chuck near 200M on players, that gives some idea how unimportant the sums really are now. It’s what you get for your buck, that’s what matters.

So when Milan spent around 250M, it was by no means a guarantee of success. What the money was spent on mattered more, and if we look at the first three matches in Serie A that this team has produced, it looks like a complete waste of cash and a squad in the same place it was last season.

Of course, there’s more to it. Montella’s tactics this season have been an absolute comedy, as have many of his selections. Picking the likes of Calabria, Montolivo, Borini and shoving them in an ill-fitting system has been the tactical nous of an amateur.

From praise last season that he was getting the most out of limited resources, he is now managing to reduce Milan’s spending to something well below what we thought it got us.

Milan are playing more or less exactly the same as last season. But why? If we look beyond Montella’s increasingly erratic, unconvincing and poor management, why are the players struggling so badly?

Why has Kessie gone from a monster to out of sorts? Why does Bonucci look so damn awful? And have you ever seen Jack look as plain p*ssed off as he did yesterday? Why are players arguing with each other? Why is no one talking to each other?

There is a weird problem at Milan, and it centres around three players, in my humble opinion:

Donnarumma, Romagnoli and Bonucci.

Donna lost the support of fans with his summer transgressions – the ugliness over the whole thing has still not entirely gone, especially as he got his useless brother a cushy gig based on nothing more than ‘who you know’. He has actually played ok this season at times, with a few very smart saves – but the summer behaviour has left a lingering aftertaste.

Then there’s the bigger issue – BonRom I’ll call it. I am going to state this now – Bonucci was a mistake of a signing. Milan had already established our defensive pairing. It was Musacchio and Romagnoli. I wasn’t hugely fond of it but was ready to give it a chance.

Then we signed Bonucci. That changed everything. Romagnoli is now a benchwarmer despite being our best defender and the Bonucci issue is starting to affect the whole team. Our captain doesn’t lead, he doesn’t communicate, and he has displaced our best defender onto the bench.

Musacchio could be benched? Yes. But then, why sign him? This is the dichotomy the signing of Bonucci has caused. We won’t give our team the three at the back, and with the two one of our defenders has to be ditched. And it’s Romagnoli who on no level deserves to be. It can’t be Musacchio because he’s a new signing and didn’t come here to be benched.

It’s a mess, and it’s completely ruined the potential of a defence which looked like it was on the right track. We were so excited by Bonucci but it’s upset us.

It’s not the only issue but it’s a major one.

Up front is another – why sign Kalinic and Silva to leave them benched? As much as I don’t hate Borini, I concede he offers little beyond running. Well, that’s really not enough.

And midfield is just producing nothing – Kessie has gone from a colossal mid to a meek mess. Montolivo shouldn’t be there. And Biglia looks absolutely passive.

It comes back to the formation, the manager, the defence, and the selections.

There is also that inescapable feeling that our new players actually aren’t that good. Our most impressive two players this season have been Suso and Cutrone – none of the new lads have consistently impressed – whether that’s the system I’m not sure, but is it the system which stops a professional footballer being able to pass to a team mate?

I’ll be honest – the only signing we made I actually knew was Bonucci. I’d never heard of Conti, Kessie, Silva, Kalinic, Rodriguez, Biglia or Calhanoglu. Maybe that’s my inferior football knowledge at play, or maybe it’s that we saw shiny foreign names and assumed they had to be better than what we have. Maybe both. All the criticism from Sheva now seems to have some merit.

Maybe this all needs time to settle. Maybe. Or maybe it’s another false dawn, bad signings, poor management and another season of mid table mediocrity.

Milan didn’t fail our first real test v Lazio, we failed it against Cagliari. Fifth bottom team with 11 men outplayed us and deserved to win.

Against Lazio we were decimated by a team that was fitter, sharper, leaner, quicker, and better organised. And yet they will likely finish around 6th or 7th.

This is all incredibly poor and whether a change in manager will fix it I don’t know. But right now it’s new players, new owners, new staff:

same old Milan.

[han2503]

Okay, where to start with this?

First off, I agree about Montella 100%. I really don't know what he's trying to achieve. Everyone was mad about the formation before the game even started so that should give you some indication of how things are going to go down.

Regarding Bonucci there are a couple of things I want to point out. First, he's one of the best CBs in the world and this is not only based on his defensive abilities, he is a leader and a creator, his problems with Allegri stemmed from the latter's cowardly ways (think Zlatan at the Emerites for similar disputes). When all the top managers in the world want you in their team it's not by coincidence or chance, so to imply that we should have passed up on him because it would put the coach and the 2 other (inferior) CBs out of their comfort zone is ridiculous imo. He's obviously not settling in as fast as we hoped, sure, but I'm not going to discount 6 years of top football due to 2 bad games with a completely new team that's obviously not clicking all that well. Secondly, Bonucci is not the reason our defence is not doing well, he's part of a bigger problem, sure as soon as we signed him we had to switch things around and that's what Montella should have instantly done. A back 3 became the obvious solution, add to that the fact that we don't have wingers and we should have moved away from the 4-3-3 with or without Bonucci. Btw, this excuse that no one should be benched is bad, great teams have a bench that's good enough to be starting, so why shouldn't we have a decent defender on the bench rather than Zapata or Paletta if we do decide to go for a back 4? Should Romagnoli be the one who sits? I don't know, he's been injured and is not fit enough to start, so that plays a factor as well. Bonucci was an opportunity, one that we shouldn't have missed out on, simple as that. To pass up on him just so your 2 defenders can still have their undisputed places makes zero sense.

Lastly, we knew the team wouldn't instantly click, we knew that we'd go through rough moments, obviously we'd hoped that we wouldn't have a massive meltdown at the first difficult hurdle but Montella is obviously making it more difficult for himself than it has to be. I have been one of his staunchest defenders here, even when we started to slide last season when injuries and fatigue came into play. But right now I simply don't have it in me to defend him anymore as he's clearly making bad choices and he's unwilling to admit that they're part of the problem, his post match yesterday was crossing a line for me.

We brought in good players, maybe not top class ones but all are very capable footballers. But if you're not going to use them correctly, what's the point?

[Danny]

Okay, where to start with this?

First off, I agree about Montella 100%. I really don't know what he's trying to achieve. Everyone was mad about the formation before the game even started so that should give you some indication of how things are going to go down.

We rarely agree these days but this one is on point. It seems to me he's been given someone else's players and won't use them properly. But then, he DID want Kalinic?!

Regarding Bonucci there are a couple of things I want to point out. First, he's one of the best CBs in the world and this is not only based on his defensive abilities, he is a leader and a creator, his problems with Allegri stemmed from the latter's cowardly ways (think Zlatan at the Emerites for similar disputes). When all the top managers in the world want you in their team it's not by coincidence or chance, so to imply that we should have passed up on him because it would put the coach and the 2 other (inferior) CBs out of their comfort zone is ridiculous imo. He's obviously not settling in as fast as we hoped, sure, but I'm not going to discount 6 years of top football due to 2 bad games with a completely new team that's obviously not clicking all that well. Secondly, Bonucci is not the reason our defence is not doing well, he's part of a bigger problem, sure as soon as we signed him we had to switch things around and that's what Montella should have instantly done. A back 3 became the obvious solution, add to that the fact that we don't have wingers and we should have moved away from the 4-3-3 with or without Bonucci. Btw, this excuse that no one should be benched is bad, great teams have a bench that's good enough to be starting, so why shouldn't we have a decent defender on the bench rather than Zapata or Paletta if we do decide to go for a back 4? Should Romagnoli be the one who sits? I don't know, he's been injured and is not fit enough to start, so that plays a factor as well. Bonucci was an opportunity, one that we shouldn't have missed out on, simple as that. To pass up on him just so your 2 defenders can still have their undisputed places makes zero sense.

It does, and yet signing him has caused an undeniable problem. Our defence is hopeless and our best defender, based on form, sits on the bench. I am not smearing Bonucci, nowhere in my post do I dismiss his ability. But his presence is causing a problem - he fell out with Allegri, could the same already have happened with Montella? Something is not right.

Why should Romagnoli not sit out? Because he's our best defender on the pitch. He's been axed for no reason and sees two guys on the field in his place who aren't delivering.

You might be right that we couldn't pass Bonucci up, but so far it's just not worked and has caused more issues than benefits.

Lastly, we knew the team wouldn't instantly click, we knew that we'd go through rough moments, obviously we'd hoped that we wouldn't have a massive meltdown at the first difficult hurdle but Montella is obviously making it more difficult for himself than it has to be. I have been one of his staunchest defenders here, even when we started to slide last season when injuries and fatigue came into play. But right now I simply don't have it in me to defend him anymore as he's clearly making bad choices and he's unwilling to admit that they're part of the problem, his post match yesterday was crossing a line for me.

What did he say?

We brought in good players, maybe not top class ones but all are very capable footballers. But if you're not going to use them correctly, what's the point?

That's the problem - Milan deserve better than 'good players'. And that's my point. We thought we were rebuilding with great players - not world class, bar Bonucci, but really good players. And yet they're looking bang average.

Montella's management is not helping, no denying it. But we agree they're only part of the problem.