[Danny]

Never quite sure where to start a thread so 'other' always seems best.

Just wanted to get general opinion from the board as to your feelings on our summer recruits so far - do you guys think we're in the right direction?

Personally I know little of Musacchio, but as Han says, a vital cog in Spain's second best defence last season has to be a decent recruit.

Kessie seems like the powerful box to box dynamic midfielder we've lacked in a long time - while Jack sort of fills that role, he's much more of an attacking midfielder really, so Kessie is a great piece of business.

Rodriguez is a great signing - comes from a great stable, a good age, and a massive upgrade over the garbage of De Sciglio.

Then there's Silva. Meh, I'm not blown away by his record, or his attitude. He's only young, true, but we've spent a lot of money on a player who appears combustible and who doesn't have a good scoring record in a weaker league than Serie A. I defer judgement on this one but it's not a signing I'm enthralled by.

Last but not least Borini. A sh*t signing, plain and simple. Not even good enough to be a squad player, I have no idea what he's doing here.

But I can pick it up with Calhanoglu - we appear close to this one, and from what I know of him, which is not a lot in truth, he's a top class attacking midfielder who would be such an upgrade to what we have.

Overall? I'm cautiously pleased. We've signed a lot of very good players and one or two I'm a little wary of. I wanted this done in 2011, but it's better late than never. Unfortunately rather than, as it would have been in 2011, adding fine players to a world class squad, we're rebuilding really from scratch.

But for me, it appears to be closer to going to Milan as we should be rather than in a poor direction.

7/10.

13/7/17 update:

We've now got Conti, Biglia and Bonucci. A RB, a CM, and a world class CB.

Suddenly we have a top four team. We now have a top four team. Yes. I am not going to declare a Scudetto challenge but we're much closer to one than we were a few days ago. This is now looking like a Milan level team.

This post has been edited by Danny: Jul 13 2017, 10:37 PM

[X-Offender]

After 7 months, a quick judgement on the performances of our signings this summer:

Positive:

Calhanouglu - After a rough start, he's the one that's improved the most. A player I would rely on next season as well as starter.
Bonucci - Same as Hakan, managed to pull himself and regain his Juve form.
Kessie - I really like this guy, he has all it takes to become a top player. Experience will only improve him, just needs to keep working hard.
Rodriguez - Let's say that he's delivered as much as I was expecting from him. He's not great, but he's not bad either.

Negative:

Biglia - Wasn't that thrilled by his arrival, but he's showing huge limitations. I honestly think Montolivo can bring more to the table than him, and that says a lot.
Andre Silva - The fact that he isn't played regularly surely doesn't help, but even so he's been a big disappointment thus far, especially considering the hype and money we spent on him.
Kalinic - Terrible signing from the get-go and he's showing that.

Indifferent:

Donnarumma - For obvious reasons.
Musacchio - I wouldn't call his signing negative. I think he's a good defender. He was starting at a very difficult period for the team, but now that we've managed to pull ourselves up he hasn't played at all.
Borini - An all around versatile player but still unnecessary.
Conti - For obvious reasons.

[han2503]

After 7 months, a quick judgement on the performances of our signings this summer:

Positive:

Calhanouglu - After a rough start, he's the one that's improved the most. A player I would rely on next season as well as starter.
Bonucci - Same as Hakan, managed to pull himself and regain his Juve form.
Kessie - I really like this guy, he has all it takes to become a top player. Experience will only improve him, just needs to keep working hard.
Rodriguez - Let's say that he's delivered as much as I was expecting from him. He's not great, but he's not bad either.

Negative:

Biglia - Wasn't that thrilled by his arrival, but he's showing huge limitations. I honestly think Montolivo can bring more to the table than him, and that says a lot.
Andre Silva - The fact that he isn't played regularly surely doesn't help, but even so he's been a big disappointment thus far, especially considering the hype and money we spent on him.
Kalinic - Terrible signing from the get-go and he's showing that.

Indifferent:

Donnarumma - For obvious reasons.
Musacchio - I wouldn't call his signing negative. I think he's a good defender. He was starting at a very difficult period for the team, but now that we've managed to pull ourselves up he hasn't played at all.
Borini - An all around versatile player but still unnecessary.
Conti - For obvious reasons.

Conti will be like a new signing next summer (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)


Anyhoo, I disagree with a couple of your assessments. I'd personally put Rodriguez in the negative and Silva in the positive, I'd also put Borini in the positive (hear me out).

Silva is kicking to life for us at just the right moment, he's proving to be a clutch player right now, he's won us 6 huge points in the space of a week. He's got massive amounts of potential. The big negative with him and Cutrone is that they're both so young and lacking in experience, we really needed to buy that 20+ goal striker last summer, it would have definitely taken off a lot of pressure from them. Kalinic was a panic buy because the other options were out of our price range. I didn't think he'd be THIS bad though. We might as well should have kept Bacca and saved our selves the odd 20m or so we spent on him

As for Borini, I think he's been very important for us in terms of being that Jack of all trades and can fill any holes in the team without much fuss and adequately enough. He's played RB, RWB, LWB, RW and LW this season and it might not have been pretty but all his time on the pitch has been important. So overall a good utility signing for us. Let's hope next season we'll get better players for the bench so we have better quality when the need arises.