£20m?

€ most probably. Not many would pay in £ for a player like him just about to touch 30.

Yeah, surely.

Yup, and considering Montolivo isn't even a flashy name to begin with. A certain player named Pirlo could have justified a price tag upwards of £20m had he left to Chelsea or any other EPL club three or four years back. When Carlo was in charge at the London club.

Montolivo is just not that big of a name, and in fact, we'd be lucky to get even a €20 million offer this year or the next for him. Not that I think we have any intention of selling him, all signs point to him retiring with Milan.

Yeah, I meant in Euros.

Still with the numbers being thrown around these days anything less than that would not be good enough.

Also, I think you're underestimating Monto's pulling power acid, he's really garnered a much wider fan base along the course of this season and last summer during the Euros where he was one of Italy's best performers.

The English commentators were wetting themselves everytime he touched the ball during the first leg against Barca. I distinctly remember this because I found it so funny that English commentators were praising an Italian player, somethins that they rarely do

I know, man. But there still is a long road for him to travel before he can be labeled with the very best. Maybe we win a CL in the next couple of years, with him being a central figure. Then yeah, he can be a classified as a maestro for the next 4-5 years he plays.

Montolivo has vision and creativity, not oodles and oodles of them, but he can make do better than most.

I'm not putting him in any bracket where he can be considered as one of the best. I think you misunderstood me there. I just think that he's really grown into his own over this season with both Italy and Milan. So I think he can easily command that type of fee considering the ridiculous money being thrown around these days

I still don't understand what R7 found funny in my post.

Dude your interpretation is wrong - we didn't make a 6m loss after selling Silva and Ibra for huge profits and being in the CL.

I wont be laughing at Milan if we don't make the CL, I'll be cheering on my team as always

As for your last comment, what will happen? Enlighten me with your assumptions.





Funny that you condemn Galliani and Berlusconi, yet call the initial result of their work in a long-term project 'not bad'.

Eh, if you paid more attention to my posts you would have realized that I've embraced this financial restructuring of ours in light of FFP for some time now. What I don't agree with are the choices Galliani and co. make in terms of players and coach.

Oh no, yeah, totally understandable. I was talking more about a world beater that would invite bids from other big clubs for the guy. Montolivo (like Aquilani) has never been one. Both combined, maybe. But each at his best does not amount to someone that can impact games, large and small, at will.

My point exactly ... As if our financial restructuring has nothing to do with the quality we can attract, eh?

It does, and it doesn't. Even with little money you can still buy quality players if you've scouted the market thoroughly. Udinese tell you much? And besides, let me give you a few examples of our poor signing/selling decisions:

• Ignore Pogba and sign Traoré instead.
• Pay €4 million for Acerbi when we could have signed Aquilani permanently for the same amount.
• Sign Dídac Vilà for €4 million and never use him.
• Sign Gabriel as 3rd GK a few days before he gets his Italian passport and thus use up the only remaining non-EU spot.
• Swap Pazzini with Cassano and give an additional €7 million to Inter.
• Let Ibrahimovic go for a mere €20 million.
• Refuse PSG's €35 million for Pato only to sell him exactly one year later for €15 million.

And those are only the most recent ones. Seriously, stop defending this management for everything like a senseless, devoted follower and use criticism whenever it's necessary.

Stop it, man, you're killing me! Our midfield would have had a completely different look with Aquaman!

Oh, you guys are still hooked on Aquilani. You meant to say MilanLab would have looked completely different, no?

Not hooked on him, but between signing him and signing Acerbi, I would have obviously preferred the former.

This is pretty cool

Nice video. Lucky b@stard

+1



Awesome...

Till death do us part...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1XnWYCS5pE


Milan all my life!

That^ video gave me goosebumps..

One thing though, all those people saying they were Milan fans since birth... How can that be? Personally, Seeing Milan for the first time on TV as a kid all alone and the process of becoming obsessed with Milan and becoming a diehard fan was a amazing feeling on its own.

I wasn't born a Milan fan, but I'll die a Milan fan

Exactly. Being a fan by birth means it's not really your choice, it's just something you're bought into. Villa was never a choice by me, my dad took me to games when I was 5 and it just stick. Milan, probably like everyone else on here was a a choice I eventually made.

Watching Football Italia on channel 4 in the 90s and becoming obsessed with Italian football. Then remembering players names and playing as them on the old FIFA's. Then starting to like certain players and teams and eventually with Mr. Shevchenko joining and me beasting on FIFA with him, my choice was made.

Udinese tells me nothing. Coming back to the top three of the standings, after an initial 8 weeks with bad results, tells me a lot about Milan.



Based on theory and hindsight, one can raise all kinds of arguments, especially when hand picking the senarios. But looking at things from a negotiation’s perspective:
Cassano, every club that he played for (bar Roma) made a loss on him, at least we sold him for a profit. You seem to forget Cassano pushed our hands for a transfer.

Letting Ibrahimovic (31yo) go for 20M is not all, the guy earned 18M a season (inclusive of tax), keeping him on would not have made you comment ‘not bad’ in your post above.

Galliani already elaborated on the Pato incident not a couple of weeks ago, he disclosed that had we sold Pato last summer we would have signed Tevez, and Milan decided to keep Pato (cheaper option going into FFP), in the winter he was sold to make way for Balotelli.

Gabriel if we hadn’t signed him, and inter signed him and he turned up to be a good keeper, would you call Galliani an idiot for not signing him that fast? Another senario to think of.

Didac Vila, Acerbi, Aquilani, Traore were all rotational players … They do not form a core of the team, hence their dismissal is not significant. Throughout any club in Europe, you have players who do not turn up when wearing the big club shirts … Happens, but then again, the quality differs and in our case, we didn’t even record a profit! At least we contained our losses for this fiscal year.

£31.5MM was our profit from transfer window activities for the 12/13 season.




Why do you think I am senseless? Is it because I disagree with you? If that is the case, then at least I knew this was inevitable, I am not biased to follow the management blindly, there are precedents http://www.milanfan.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7445. The management is one of the best in Europe, whether you agree or not, Silvio Berlusconi has in the ‘long-run’ made AC Milan history, with the experience of one Dr. Adriano Galliani.

The problem you face today is your club can not afford it all anymore. I think that is the problem, you either implode like inter or you construct a project like Milan.

Huh, what kind of response is that? I mentioned Udinese as an example that quality players can come on the cheap if your scouters are good enough, and you bring up us getting to 3rd place instead? DAFUQ?!



Cassano's past doesn't matter. He had been really good for us for a season and a half, he shined with Italy in the Euros, whilst Pazzini was marginalized by Inter after a crappy season. This is what you base a player's price on, not their frigging history.



His high wage doesn't matter, at all. Ibra is one of the Top 5 strikers in the world, and it's criminal that we sold him for just €20 million. We could and should have made a much bigger profit from his sale.



When you look at it now, then it all comes down to preference. Would you have preferred selling Pato to PSG, signing Tevez, making a small profit and possibly winning the scudetto last season? Or selling him to Corinthians a year later and sign Balotelli? I'd say the former option is more attractive.



If, if, if. Gabriel hasn't played a single game for us so far, and the management haven't even considered him as a possibility for next season considering they're after other goalies. Heck, Allegri even prefers Amelia to him for crying out loud!



€4 million for Dídac, €4 million for Acerbi, not to mention the various Mattioni, Grimi, Cardacio, Viudez etc. in the past which we didn't sign for free. No matter how you look at it, they were screw-ups by our management which could have been avoided.



Good one.

Even the walls know you'd follow Berlusca and Baldy to hell if it came to it, so stop acting like you rationalize when it comes this management. You defend them about everything, and I think we've been together on this forum way too long for you to claim the contrary. So, let's just leave this argument aside, shall we?

It's pointless arguing x-off.

Whatever option doesn't result in Tevez here.

We already know your thoughts on the matter, Kurt.

Yes, and Milan got players on the cheap too, only difference between the two is the position on the table, hence my response



Price is based on many factors, take an example of Juventus with Ibramovic, they sold him at a discount and to inter .. Why? Because inter knew Zlatan wanted to leave Juve at all costs that summer and that Juventus had zero room to negotiate further than the players demands to leave. The same applies with Cassano as he forced our hands for a transfer. Pazzini and Cassano are not a club deal, they were separate deals, but the net effect is Cassano +7MM.



His high wage matters a lot, It is a matter of costs that you seem to neglect in that our losses are in the most part contributed by our wages, was something like 80% of total revenue.



Potato potato really.



If if and another if



Screw ups? Try looking at the holistic structure, and not handpick. We made 30MM+ on transfers for 12/13.



Not really .. If I do my work and see what direction the club is taking, I see things differently from your assumptions and general bias, only time will tell. And as of now, you have retracted from calling BS to FFP and the club working towards it, lets see what you retract from in the next two seasons, shall we?

No, the only difference is that we sign cheap and unknown players who turn out to be good once in a blue moon, whilst Udinese has been doing it regularly for the past few years. And the position on the table has got nothing to do with this argument, so stop bringing it up.



Ibra left because Juve were relegated to Serie B, of course they didn't have a say in it. You should take a more concrete example, of when Ibra wanted to leave Inter. How much money did Inter make out of that deal? I think it was Eto'o + €40 million. Now, compare that to the Cassano-Pazzini swap. Cassano is the better player, was coming from an excellent moment, wanted to leave, whilst Inter had discarded Pazzini who'd had a crappy season before. What does logic tell you? That the €7 million we gave to Inter was an idiotic thing to do. Of course, you can now say that we came off victors from the deal, but those €7 million will always remain wasted, even if Pazzini wins the frigging Ballon d'Or.



His high wage matters in our decision to sell him, but it doesn't matter in his price. So, ManU that sold Ronaldo to Madrid for €93 million should have sold him for peanuts because Ronaldo was earning a high wage?



By selling our two best players. Jeez man, it's not like we're making a profit due to excellent management. We're making a profit because we screwed up many times in the past and had to sell our stars to make up for it. How can you not understand this?



I retracted from FFP because I see the club is heading into a certain direction, but I will never retract from my opinion that the management of this club has been very, very poor in the last 6-7 years, because the evidence is blatant in our faces. And don't talk about bias to me, because you're the finest example of it.

So GDS reports that Silvio is willing to keep Allegri for one more season.

So another season of horrible football is underway.

We'll see.

New shirts for next season:

The away and third are just

The away shirt has a terrible collar design. What is it with the fake v-neck

The third is reminiscent to the one we had in the 04/05 season.

I like them all, even the third one. Nice job this time around.

Home - gold stripes look crap.
Away - what the hell is that collar design!?
3rd - that's not too bad.

At least the home jersey won't have the dreadful white collar anymore.

Amen to that

Dandy!

Those jerseys are awful.

I don't like the first two but the third looks nice. I might buy it.

I don't like the third.

Who designes these things? I understand in this day and age big corporations outsource labor and such to poorer countries, but do they now do that with design other such technical jobs too? The second jersey looks like it was created with winning eleven kit editor.

Yeah, same. Lethal minds think alike!

We are better than acid and Bauer. Our minds are so good.