[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.

[Jack Sparrow]

Lot of interesting reactions here. But I'm on vacation in India and I can't be bothered. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Just a point - I continue to hate the 3-5-2 formation. If we're playing something like a 3-4-3 or even a 3-4-1-2 I might be more optimistic.

In general though this whole 3 man defence just because we have Bonucci in there seems weird to me. There are other things we need to consider. There are lots of teams playing a 4 man defence with a ball playing CB.

I think this team's biggest problem is that left flank. We have to find a way to make Jack and Hakan co-exist since Suso, Kessie and Conti have the right side sealed out.

Kessie's flop I blame it on fatigue. He's played 90 minutes for almost every match including the friendlies. And for the internationals as well. We need to give him a couple of days off.

[X-Offender]

Lot of interesting reactions here. But I'm on vacation in India and I can't be bothered. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Just a point - I continue to hate the 3-5-2 formation. If we're playing something like a 3-4-3 or even a 3-4-1-2 I might be more optimistic.

In general though this whole 3 man defence just because we have Bonucci in there seems weird to me. There are other things we need to consider. There are lots of teams playing a 4 man defence with a ball playing CB.

I think this team's biggest problem is that left flank. We have to find a way to make Jack and Hakan co-exist since Suso, Kessie and Conti have the right side sealed out.

Donna
Conti - Musacchio - Bonucci - Rodriguez
Kessie - Biglia
Suso - Hakan - Bona
Kalinic

But no one listens to me.

[Danny]

Donna
Conti - Musacchio - Bonucci - Rodriguez
Kessie - Biglia
Suso - Hakan - Bona
Kalinic

But no one listens to me.

I don't agree on two fundamental tenets - that Kessie can work in a DP. I know I know he worked in one at Ata, but this isn't Ata. He sucks when sitting in and recently has been in mediocre form going forward. I don't think sitting on the right of a 3 is helping him at all.

As for the four man defence, it's all been said. And our esteemed coach says we're going 3 at the back now.