AC Milan tactician Carlo Ancelotti discusses the difficulties encountered by the Rossoneri in the transfer market.

Many believed that AC Milan would have significantly strengthened its team this summer, filling the gaps that have conditioned the rather poor domestic season.

However, so far, AC Milan haven’t taken any direct action on the transfer market.

Thierry Henry chose Barcelona over them, Suazo chose Inter over them, and they must now restart their search for a striker. Many believe that a midfield and a defensive signing is also a must.

However, Ancelotti believes that the team is strong as it is.

"Suazo’s will to move to Inter was enough to avoid him joining us," said Ancelotti. "We liked Henry, but he receives a much higher wage in Spain.

"Barcelona don’t want to sell any of their star players, just like we don’t want to give away Kaka to Madrid.

"We already have a strong team. Remember that we won the Champions League without Ronaldo, and next season, he will be available.

"Then we have Inzaghi, Gilardino and Oliveira. We could play with one or two strikers and the most important thing is that we will have to be reliable."

goal.com

If he realy meant all that I would go ...

But let's wait and see what happens.

Lets identify weak links in the squad (bold)

GK - Dida - Storari - Kalac - Covered here

DF - Oddo - Maldini - Nesta - Janku - Bonera - Kaladze - Cafu - Serginho - Favalli - Simic

Sergio and cafu cant go on for much longer, so a fullback may be necessary. We are fine in the centre of the pitch unless someone goes

MF - Kaka - Gattuso - Pirlo - Seedorf - Gourcuff - Brocchi - Ambrosini

Attacking Mid maybe but i would like to see gourcuff develop

ST - Gilardino - Inzaghi - Ronaldo - Olivera

Everyone has proved themselves except olivera, he is the only liablity attack wise

If you look at it, it wouldnt be a major disapointment if we didnt sign anyone DF MF are pretty much fine its only ST which needs a little tweaking

Let's wait and see if Silvio can bring 1 from: Drogba, Ronaldinho, Shevchenko, David Villa, Klose, Fernando Torres and Eto'o.

Can't see other "big name" joining us apart from those above.
Let's relax. 67 days to close the transfer-window.

i'm going to throw in all my chips for Hernan Crespo

Another inbox striker?

Hmm..let's see:
Drogba: Possible
R20: Lost hope
Sheva: Possible
Villa: dunno
Klose: Already announced that he'll join Bayern in 2008...but you never know
Torres. Seems to join Liverpool
Eto'o: As in R20s case..lost hope

My personal choice of that list would be Villa. He really impressed me in the last 2 years. And he has already proved that he can kill the merda on his own

Yeah, so we can win the Champions Legaue again. But it's the same squad that failed in the league!

As whoarethepatriots said, we need a full back, I'm starting to think Zambrotta would be a wise move as he can play both flanks.

We do need another midfielder, Kaka' and Gourcuff could be fine as our more attacking guys but we need cover for the others. Brocchi is simply not good enough.

One more striker please, R9, Gila and Pippo are good, a 4th is a must.

Zambrotta
Emerson (Though it looks doubtful now) Who else instead of him?
R20

I was happy that we lost Suazo.

Now I just hope that the next possible transfer will be better than him.

Hmmm Tevez or Eto'o.

I see Tevez joining Real....Eto'o will most likely stay where he is...

There are several players that really are weak links or just mediocre links.

This forward business is really the key. I don't trust Gilardino as our starting striker. Ronaldo is great but he's always injury prone.

Yeah Tevez has come out to say that he will only go to Real Madrid.

Maybe we should really look to the next youth player then say Pato, Palacio or others. If we can't get seasoned talent maybe we can get some youth to make an impact and rebuild the team a bit.

Palacio's signed for Barca, too.

Oliveira is all but on his way out, according to Galliani.


Borriello won't be scoring anything with us next season because he was recently sold to Genoa.

I think Carlo has said nothing wrong ... Of course he has to stand by his squad .. He won't say that he will release anyone of his players (it isn't for him to decide ).

PLUS .. He has to show support for the team as a collective unit and reiterate what they have done in Athena .. This team that has so many flaws in it (age issue, striker problem, fullbacks, etc etc ..) has won the CL, so he isn't gonna go out in public and point fingers .. I am sure that he has the exact same ideas as we have, i.e. strengthening the squad .. But not at the expense of giving out mixed messages the the papers

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS THIS PLAYER THAT WILL SHOCK THE WORLD???

I've been thinking the exact same thing.

It isn't Henry, obviously. R10 and Eto'o have repeatedly been linked with us, so I don't see how they could be a 'shock'.

There's only two name - Ibrahimovic and Totti. There is not one other player that was cause a huge shock, only those two. But we're not getting any of them, I think it was just said to make the fans feel excited about something.

The problem is Silvio and Galliani have used the same kind of rhetoric with the big signing last summer right. The big surprise that we were all waiting for which was Favalli and Oliveira. The previous surprise was Viera aka Golden flop award.

There really isn't a big signing to be had. It would appear that by now we would have signed them or there would have been speculation in that direction. Etoo is now a target of Arsenal and they are willing to pay the big money to sign him.

Totti....half the city of Rome would walk to Milan and start a riot if that was about to happen...and Totti could never ever set a foot on Roman ground again....

Oh yeah!??

If Tevez prefers Inter to Real (see today's Gazzetta) then they can't be paying him peanuts...

Quit that ****! There was a time when Silvio payed from his own pocket too!!



No, we DON'T have a strong team!! We have a great starting XI, to me the greatest in the world as they can beat anyone, anytime, anywhere but a strong team? Please... we would have never won the Champions League if we hadn't quit fighting for the Scudetto.

We DON'T have a strong squad cause we won't be able to fight for every target next season, simple as that!

Exactly my point. He and Zlatan are the only two players on the planet that would cause a huge shock by joining Milan. But it is NOT either of them, there is 0% chance of either joining.

We've been fooled again.

Exactly

No, they fooled ourselves by jumping to the conclusions,...I`m pretty sure that the big suprise, the so called mystery man was either Henry or Etoo or Suazo,...someone who we allready lost.

Our squad has much more problems and week links then mentioned:

1) Injury prone players - a long list - Maldini, Nesta, Ambro, and most of all Pippo and Ronaldo. And this is what I fear most of, and I think it will eventually happen - R99 and Pippo getting injuried at the same time, so that we stay only at Gilardino whom I dont trust to score against any team above the quality of Udinese.

Also, we get pretty shaky if Nesta would be injuried.

2) Our midfield subs suck...all of them. Gourci is too green and can`t do anything special, Brocchi is really horrible. It makes me a headache. Who can step in?? We have noone left?! This is my main concerne...

3) Our fullbacks dont give us the open and wide, offensive option any more. I like the long runs of our LBs and RBs, but it seems to me everything is turned up side down: Sergio and Cafu, offensive-wise players, are not that fast any more so their prime plus is now off; while Oddo and Janku have the strenght but not the skill needed. Janku can`t cross that good, and Oddo, well Oddo you can`t even watch when he crosses...

So someone who can run miles and miles up and down must come in...

4) Aerial defense: that department stayed unsolved since Stam went off...We simply need a strong defender!


And what bothers me most is that I really dont see any initiative from our board. It seems they have not learned anything from last year.
Instead of waste time that is limited by trying to lure impossible players (We simply cant play the game dirty like Real or Chelski do. And it seems that our old fashioned, donnish way really cant succeed) and dream of things that cant be done, we should be down to earth and bring up three, four or even five new talented and quality players avaible. We should show more interest in younger and not well known players.

Last season we signed Favalli, Oli, R99 and Oddo. With every of does players, exept Gourci who was really a suprise for me, we didnt really know what we got. With Oli we didnt get much, with Favalli we just got lucky. Ronaldo is class, Oddo, well, he adapted fast, thats his best thing.

And what now? Should we wait to see if we get lucky with Ibrahim Ba just like Favalli? What next season then? Should we then sign Giuseppe Cardone and Gianni Comandini as well and hope we`ll be lucky with them too?