The summer thread was too depressing (at least for me) so let's start a new one.

What do you expect to see (besides Honda) ?

(besides Honda, I expect..) possibly Kucka & Astori?

Pinned

In terms of transfers, I'm personally expecting another midfielder who can cover for De Jong and a CB. Kucka and Astori are the obvious choices obviously, but Astori will cost too much and he's not really worth spending a huge fee on. If nothing else he'd only be a reliable backup for Mexes/Zapata.

Also, I'm expecting some exits as well. Maybe Niang (hopefully the Kucka swap deal happens), atm there's absolutely no room for him (thank God), maybe Nocerino and Zaccardo as well will be out

So

In: Kucka, CB, Honda
Out: Niang, Zaccardo, Nocerino

I think doing this would improve the squad considerably

I agree with this and it's probably not that far off from being realistic too.

Was Nocerino that bad last season?

Yes, he was, I personally thought it was a combination of lack of form and having to play without Ibra. But even if he's not going to score 10 goals a season without Ibra the fact is he'd played below par all season long and it doesn't look to have improved.

I'd personally rather heep him then a Muntari but Allegri obviously prefers the latter so it's pointless, and I think we can bring in a decent sum for Nocerino

OMG han wants Nocerino out ?!?!??!!?

Like I said, I'd rather Muntari be the one to GTFO, but seeing as he' Allegri's secret love child and that Nocerino would actually bring us a decent sum as he's still very highly regarded then Nocerino would be the better option to sell.

Agreed, though I actually prefer Muntari over Nocerino. Muntari is a good ball-winner for us, he and De Jong support our fragile defense.

2013: Kaka', Honda and Montolivo. Creativity will be back.

I'm just glad two of our four midfielders have some vision and creativity. Kaká might have lost his pace, but his vision and passing will always be world class. De Jong and Poli also are very good passers. We might finally see some improvements in our game.

Yeah, the midfield is taken care of, now only if our coach had some vision and creativity.

I think we're one really good CM away from having the midfield taken care of. Plus should any one of Monto or De Jong get injured we're in deeper sh!t than we were last season when we lost De Jong. Don't forget, there's no Flamini or Ambro this season. Only Muntari and Nocerino are reliable options to take over and even those 2 aren't really pure DMs

Oh yeah, true, I was talking more in creativity terms. While I do think a midfield of Montolivo, Honda, Kaka, Poli, Saponara is highly creative, guys like De Jong and Nocerino (hopefully he stays and picks up his game) can take care of guard duties.

Balotelli also has that touch of creativity, and with Abate and DeScig, goal scoring at will ought not be a problem. And that's even without throwing Shaarawy into the mix, who granted is not creative or creates, but is a good finisher. Only part of the puzzle that remains is Allegri. To him I say, man up or man out!

But overall, in terms of creative potential this midfield is miles ahead of the dry seasons of Ambrosini, Flamini, De Jong, Nocerino, Boateng, Gattuso and then Muntari. More than two of these guys should never have played together, if were were planning to outscore oppositions. And guess what, when they did, we did not.

Don't know if this was posted but...

He has a contract for two more years so he will return here in the end of the season.

Agreed on that bit, I'm mostly worried about what even 1 injury to that midfield could do to us at this point. I guess when Honda comes we'll have more depth as he can play in a more retreated role in midfield.

And yes, personally I'm seriously worried about Allegri. All of Gazzetta's predictions have Matri as the 1st choice striker next to Balo. If he drops SES to accommodate his personal idiotic signing, I'll be seriously p!ssed off, even more than I am when I see Muntari constantly starting, and that's saying something.

Dropping him last Sunday for Robinho was just a slap in the face, he said it's because he hasn't played the new tactical set-up but that's really not an excuse, the kid is a striker more than he is a winger, he'll have no problem playing there and I'm sure he'll do great there.

SES was the player that saved Allegri's @ss last season because if it weren't for his goals he'd have been fired before November. I seriously do hope that he won't treat him as he is known to treat certain players with the typical 4 minute sub. Because that's just the most disrespectful thing, I'd rather he hadn't brought him on last Sunday than seeing that, just disgusting


Damn it! Can't we for ONCE just sell a player FFS? Have we actually sold a single player this summer for outright cash?

@ Jack, do the 2 years include this coming season?

Also, we have a host of players who'll be on their final year of contracts this season, namely Abate, Abbiati, Urby, Silvestre and Coppola.

Aside from Abate I think all should be let go. But we seriously need to get on extending Abate's contract. Just ridiculous to let it even run down this long

He'll have one year left after his return. But we'll probably just exchange him for someone else we don't need.

Yeah, now that you bring it up, I'm scared of the fact that there is some trouble brewing between Allegri and Shaarawy. There have been some reports that suggested this much, you have the coach regularly saying that things are fine between him and the player, even Shaarawy said so once. No it's not alright, from what I see it.

If it were, no one would be talking about it or denying it. Fire, smoke, something like that? Be interesting what he does to the Pharaoh this season, how Allegri treats and plays the kid. But I already sense it that the Matri signing was just Allegri's way of laying the smack down on El Shaarawy.

I hope I'm proven wrong, a few matches into the season. But he pulled his shtick on Pato, he can do it to anyone.

Kaká-Balo-Matri sounds logical though, especially for a 4-3-1-2. You've got your typical trequartista, your prima punta who can defend the ball, and the second striker who can score, dribble the opponent and provide assists. Kinda reminds me of the Kaká-Sheva-Gila combo.

Pato was terrible and rightfully dropped and sold.

SES has been terrible for 6 months or so and players need to be dropped. Matri over SES? Yeah. I'd have Robinho in the team over SES at this point.

I don't think he's been terrible. I think what we're seeing is typical of a young player (a very young player) being put in a position out of his comfort zone and having to acclimatize. He's got another 4 years of 'training' before he hits his peak. Let's not rush and start treating him like a prime player.

I wouldn't be too hasty to call it ego issues, just because my opinions on Allegri might be tainting that judgement.

Not when you have someone like SES on the bench it doesn't, and Balo likes to play as a CF in the equation.


Ask yourself why he's been bad for the last 6 months

Stuck wide playing as some sort of double FB in Allegri's painfully retarded "system", and what has Matri done exactly to warrant the start FFS?

Matri had a role at Juve and did it well, like Pazzini did with us. SES was brilliant for the first 4 months of the season but really has done nothing at all since.

Scoring 10 goals in I don't know how many appearances?

And what does that have to do with anything really? He has done zilch for Milan, and just like Pazzini (once Balo came) was treated as a sub, the same should be done for Matri.

SES and his great 4 months saved Allegri's @ss last season, he and Balo have also shown great glimpses of link-up play. Balo and Matri will only get in each other's way as Balo tends to move centrally a lot and same can be said for Matri

A front line of



is far more dynamic then a front line of



Simply because Matri does nothing but stand around and wait for the tap-in, at least Pazzo does great holding up the ball, that's not really part of Matri's game

"appearances" is a massively generic term though.

Matri was mostly used off the bench and only played 1,000 minutes of the entire season. I don't recall who it was (Trini maybe) posted a table showing that - taking penalties out - he had the best goals: minutes ratio in the entire league. You can push it off as "meaningless stats" but fact is he's a goalscorer.

What you said makes no sense. Do you think when we signed Balo he should've been on the bench? After all he'd done nothing for Milan. SES is a very limited player, a lot of young players start out hot as they're new. After a while they get found out and that's when the hard work starts - we'll see if he can adapt or not.

Matri had the best midfield in the league in support of him, Pazzini barely had a midfield behind him and their stats are nearly identical.

And if SES is considered a "very limited player" by you then I don't know what to say about Matri.

To score the amount of goals he did in Serie A isn't just something a "lot of young players" do. And let me remind you he scored zero penalties as well.

To bench him for Matri would just be blasphemous on every footballing and logical level that you can think of. Simple as that.

And of course Balo is different. Unlike Matri, Balo is a top player that the team desperately needed at the time. Matri is just added weight that was mostly a frivolous buy by our coach.

I never said players do score that amount of goals, it's just common for players to start great and fade. It's going to be even harder for him now.

Pato was not trained properly and his injuries were all muscle related, that was do to the way Milan had him bulking up. SES hasn't inspired me at all, I'm not convinced playing thru the middle is the answer either. Mario would play better off Matri than he would Pazzini. Matri tends to do some work out of the box, his hold up play is pretty decent and can bring other players into the game. with the return of Kaka i think the prospect of Matri over Pazzini will become a reality.

I know what you said, but even if most players do start great, that could mean anything really. SES started out by being the club top scorer. I don't think that's just a run of the mill great that is simply experienced by every young talented player.

It won't be as hard for him as last season when he was stuck wide on the wing having to both defend and the responsibility of scoring the goals as well. He found it hard last season because he was being played in a position that is simply not suited to him. A winger needs to be able to dribble, cross and pass very well, not really traits that SES possesses. He's a very quick striker, nothing else. And as soon as other teams figured out how to keep him stuck out wide the goals dried up.

All I'm saying is that he needs to be given a PROPER chance playing as a striker on this team, and not giving him that privilege after last season in order to play Matri would be seriously stupid

Anyway, it's pointless talking about it now as we haven't seen what Allegri will decide as of yet, but I have a nasty suspicion that he'll be playing Matri ahead of him.

Matri can do work outside the box?

Even if you haven't watched him these last few years at Juve, his 20 minute appearance for us should tell you that he can do no such thing.

Work outside the box? Look at what SES does on a weekly basis travelling up and down the wing defending or how him and Balo linked up so well against PSV. Look at the work Pazzini did last season, especially in that game against Barca. Matri is just not even as good as Pazzini, let alone as good as SES who is one of the most sought after young players in football

I understand not being inspired by him yet, but you seriously cannot tell me that you'd bench him in favour of Matri.

for a start i'm not suggesting anything of the sort. Conte said that Matri was the best striker for counter-attacking because he holds the ball, lays it off and then makes his way into the box...his words not mine.

As for Pazzini i'd pick him over Matri and SES over him so that tells you what my opinion of him is.

My opinion doesn't matter i was merely stating what i think will happen. As for SES and his work outside the box yes you're correct he does travel up and down the wing and does a superb job, but that was in a 4-3-3 Allegri will now go 4-3-1-2.

Listen I'm not saying Matri is better or worse than anyone else or Pazzini or SES or anyone else i'm simply stating what i think will happen

Well I seriously hope that you're wrong

And Conte was talking BS about not wanting Giaccherini and Matri to leave, does that mean he was telling the truth? I think he was mostly just being diplomatic instead of waving the Loser sign in our faces and yelling "Gotcha Suckas" for buying Matri off them (their 4th choice) for more than they paid for Tevez

Also I think SES or whoever partners Balo upfront will have to drop back and help out the midfield.

Before with the 4-3-3 the 2 "wingers" tended to defend a lot, because Allegri just can't help himself, and even when we played the 4-3-1-2 when Ibra was here, the other striker tended to drop back and defend, which is why he usually preferred Robinho over Pato, not to mention that we had a box-to-box workhorse as the AM.

Now we're going to be playing a proper trequartista. So the striker next to Balo will need to be able to drop with Kaka to make part of the midfield when we're defending, because Balo ain't going to be doing anything of the sort.

We all know that a striker had to go from Juve because of the money situation. Either Matri or Quag were going to go, if i'm honest with Llorente underperforming then yes i do believe that Conte would've preferred Matri over Quag to stay.

If you look when Balotelli and Cassano played together for Italy Mario did do a fair bit of defending pushing out wide so don't underestimate the possibility of him doing that and 1 thing that has improved since he joined from Man.City is his workrate for the team.

No matter what the situation at Juve, they all high fived each other at the extortionate fee they got for him, the Juve fans practically threw a party about it for crying out loud.

And it's a completely different ball game here, doing it for 2 or 3 games in the Euros for Italy doesn't mean that he'll be doing it week in week out for Milan for an entire season.

And really, to have Balo dropping back deep to defend and support a player like Matri would be a huge waste.

The fee is neither here or there tbh.

Yes you're right about Balo and the Euro's but give me a break here you're busting my nuts over every suggestion! lol
the template is there for him to play a role like that, either Matri or Pazzini will be the 1 playing up top can't imagine it being any other way so Mario's role will differ, but thinking about the PSV game how deep did Mario come to lay on the pass for Poli runs for the 3rd goal?

All this is conjecture until we see after the break

Sorry

Seriously, personally I can't see this Matri, Balo duo working. But Allegri will insist on it as usual.

Last season Pazzini was never even an option alongside Balo unless we were going with 4 strikers upfront in the last few minutes of a game when we're in panic mode. So suddenly Balo absolutely NEEDS Matri next to him? Just ridiculous excuse to get Matri on the team for some reason or another by Allegri.

I seriously cannot wait to get rid of him at the end of this season. As long as he's here, no matter how good or average the squad is we'll underperform so what's the point? The only bad thing is that he's being touted as a possible Prandelli replacement. In that case I'd only have to suffer watching a team I support every few months

Of course he'll insist on it, he specifically asked for Matri. Yes whatever happens i think Allegri will be gone Don Silvio doesn't want him the only plus would be if it was a swap and Prandelli became Milan coach. Also Allegri wouldn't get the time and patience in charge of the NT so he'll so be removed.

There are a lot of rumours and basically most journalists expect Prandelli to take his place at Milan.

Never was a huge fan of El Shaarway. We spent €12 million on Matri, might as well try him out.

You guys keep nagging about the youth project..and how Galliani didn't follow his project, but have absolutely no patience to see someone develop. El Sharaawy has shown us glimpses of what he can do, he certainly has the potential and the mentality to become very good, yet you prefer the provincial Matri...

Yep.

Listen, I'm not someone who thinks El Shaarawy is the second coming or that he's as good as Neymar (), had we received some ridiculous offer like say 45m from an oil club then I'd have said sell him because he'll never be worth that amount, even in his peak years.

But, the kid IS talented, just not WINGER talented, but certainly FAR more talented than Matri even in the finishing department. He works hard both on and off the pitch, he's a well behaved guy who we never heard an inkling of misbehaviour about, him and Balo are showing some great glimpses of link up play, he's very fast, something we need considering Kaka has lost his turn of pace and Balo isn't really that quick, he's still very young, and I think people forget that especially after what he did in his first months last season where he carried the team like a seasoned pro and not someone who's coming out of Serie B with barely a handful of Serie A games to his name from the previous season.

Taking all that into consideration, to bench him for a player like Matri is absolute madness, and no it won't be like Sheva and Gila, simply because Sheva was a completely different player to Balo and unlike Sheva, Balo likes to occupy the CF position on the pitch, which is where Matri would slot in because he can't do anything else.

And yes we spent 12m on Matri, but does that mean we have to use him? Even if he flops like a big fish on land? Matri was an unneeded player and the only way he should be used is as Balo's sub

He's really not.

True, and he's a downright atrocious dribbler. Just watch his matches when he has the ball to his feet, he absolutely struggles to get past most midfielders and defenders. And the worrying part is that he did not actually improve this one bit during the course of the season.

Shaarawy has finishing abilities, hard work, head down kind of approach and he helps the defense immensely, unlike some of our recent forwards (Ibra and Balo come to mind). Point being, there is still room for massive improvements.

Have you actually seen him play?

He's certainly the fastest player in our attack.

No he's not a good dribbler acid, which is why it's absolutely ridiculous that he's used as a winger. But that's not his fault

That's a very agreeable proposition.

the real problem we're having here is lack of a proper vision shown by both the coach and the management

there's absolutely no correlation between the supposed youth project, the striker we eventually got and the amount spent.

let's go back a bit to selling pato in january for 15m, i never liked the idea, we really should have just sent him on a loan to rehabilitate himself, gain his fitness and confidence back, especially as we've now spent 12m on a 29yr old matri and we just extended the robinho deal ( another 29yr old who was soooo terrible last 6mths)

had pato gone on loan instead of an outright sale for a meager 15m our strike force would have been :

balo 23yrs (4m/season)
pato 24yrs (a renegotiated deal as his contract was winding down)
el-sha 20 yrs old (2m)
pazzini 29yrs (2.7m)
petagna- 18yrs (decent back-up happy for now to play for peanut wages) & other primavera kids like kingsley boateng have gotten the odd game or two

matri- would not have been bought for 12m (from juve) or given 2.6m/season for 4years
robinho- would have been sold/contract not extended/ given away to santos for next to nothing to get him off our squad
niang- given to genoa in exchange for a more useful player

The coach asked for Matri. Nothing more can be said. It's not a logical choice, it's a personal choice.

If he. Flops feel free. To. Hang Allegri. If he doesn't u gotta bite ur tongue

I did bite my tongue this morning after waking up in bed.

No fun.

Watched him in the the friendly we played today against Ciasso (Swiss team), he was absolutely terrible, everything from hold up play, finishing to simply controlling the ball and passing was just plain bad, and this was against a side that would probably struggle in Serie B

On the other hand you can already tell that Kaka is simply on a different wavelength of class than the other players that were on the pitch. Only De Jong and Mexes are anywhere near that level

Saponara came on in the second half, scored a goal and had some nice plays, Vergara looked a bit more promosing than he did in preseason, and a kid named Modic from the Primavera looked like a real talent for the future, don't know if you guys know anything about him

Agreed once again! With everything you posted! But I guess Galliani maliciously wanted Pato out, and Allegri did not want him either. I mean, you miss a penalty and then get crucified for all your past sins. I don't know whether Pato goes to the World Cup next year or not, but if Ancelotti stays at Madrid, I can see him going there.