I personally cannot see a Cavani or Costa being as great as they are if they don't get good service.

Ibra is completely different though, he's just as much a creator as he is a striker

I personally believe that if you brought in either Costa or Cavani into this team and leave the rest of the squad as is they'd flop hard.

Torres is not as great as he used to be, no arguments there. But I never really saw him as an Ibra type striker, I'd put him more in the Costa/Cavani bag than the Ibra one, so to not only ask him to score now but to expect some sort of all-round thing from him while he's in decline would not be fair. So I do sympathise with him because I do feel like he's struggling more because of our lack of creativity more than anything else

Suarez. He WAS Liverpool. Now he's gone and they're shite.

Want more examples?

Would you really call Suarez a typical CF though? He can play deep, he can play on the wing and he can play up top. Would you play Cavani on the wing for example or even in the trequartista position (which Suarez occupied at times last season as well)?

Cavani plays wide at PSG when Ibra is not out injured/suspended.

Suarez was pretty much an inside forward/winger the entirety of last season. Sturridge played through the middle. As for Liverpool this season, Sturridge has only played 3 games so far this season, they did just fine with Suarez last season.

So in the light what you said, Okaka is a world class CF alla Ibrahimović for you?

And I don't see how you can disagree. You say Liverpool was shite, but you easily forget that their midfield consisted of Gerrard, Xabi Alonso plus players like Hamann or Berger. Well maybe it isn't especially fancy, but man is this miles ahead of the creative forces of Montolivo, de Jong, Poli and Muntari.

And sure, top class CF's in form can do the work by themselves. But; firstly a prima punta rarely does. Ibra was never the typical prima punta. Torres, yes, but then you see he never had an actually bad service midfield - and you can also argue that his decline started with the decline of Liverpools midfield quality. And secondly, being reduced to Ibra is part of todays problem as well, it's what Allegri didn't mind turning Milan into. And now it's part of our mentality problem.

Bottom line is, I think we don't need Okaka. We need good midfielders, organizers, builders, architects.

He hasn't done that in a while though since Ibra's been injured and it's only now that he's playing through the centre that he's scoring regularly again. They were dubbing him a failure after last season

Who said we don't need those? Midfield is our worst department. But signing a CF doesn't exclude signing quality midfielders.



Point is he's not so limited as you imply. Most CFs nowadays are not in the mold of Inzaghi, Crespo, Gilardino, Pazzini, Matri etc. Those are poachers. People like Suarez, Diego Costa, Cavani, Benzema etc. are CFs that are not 100% reliant on service, but can also make things happen on their own. And I think Okaka falls more into the later category, even though obviously he's not near as good as the names I mentioned.

Notice that during my first reply I said that players like Cavani or Costa will create but without good service behind them they wouldn't score anywhere near the amount of goals that they do

I never said that either Cavani or Costa are limited. They're great strikers, certainly not poachers in the Pippo/Gila/Pazzo mould.

But they're not prolific creators either, therefore they need a creatively strong midfield behind them for them to rack up the kind of goal tallies that they do.

Suarez and Benzema are more all-rounders for me, especially Suarez, they're very capable of both starting or finishing an attacking move. And while I do agree with you that both Costa and Cavani can do this as well, they won't do it on a regular basis like a Suarez or Ibra does, their best asset is scoring.

So I still stand by my point, bring Cavani or Costa here and leave the rest of the team as is and they'd struggle. I don't for one second believe that they'd be able to come into this team and do what Ibra did.

I'm not saying this is an either/or issue, but the initial point of this discussion was that a better striker would fix some of our issues, and personally I just don't think that's the case at all

wtf

I've made no comment on Okaka.



wtf

I said the current Liverpool, not one from 2005.



wtf

PSG under Carlo and Blanc are doing the same thing, as did Ajax and Juve and Inter and every club he's been at, Barca aside.



wtf

I never said I wanted Okaka.

Cavani has been on the wing his entire time at PSG.

He was on the wing last season because of Ibra. Ibra has been injured this season and Cavani is playing in the centre and finally really shining as he did at Napoli, while after last season (playing on the wing as you said) he was already getting dubbed a failure and someone PSG wanted to sell.

Not sure I'd say 6 in 13 for PSG is shining.

Decent, but for someone once dubbed a 'top 3' striker on earth, it's not that impressive. Especially for a team that good in a 'relatively' weaker league.

It's better than last season as the general view on him is far more positive than it was last imo. He was getting a lot of shtick last season

Yeah he was rubbish last season.

Well he's not a winger so go figure...

Gets played there for Uruguay too. I have no idea why.

Probably because he works hard

What's with the wtf's? Is it really so annoying to you to see my comments or what?

Sorry, the discussion started with Okaka, I assumed you wanted to say that Okaka is different/better then our recent PP failures. Sorry.


You said current Liverpool? How can Torres be in the current Liverpool? No man, you're stretching this just because you wanted to add another wtf. And here's the proof from your initial post:




Indeed. Carlo tried to make PSG less Ibra-dependent, Blanc doesn't care actually. But my point is, all the "good" Ibra sides, Juve under Fabio, Inter to an extent and PSG to an even lesser extent with Carlo all had a solid plan B and tried to avoid solely rely on Ibrahimović. Juventus had major problems and changes (due to relegation) after Ibra left, while Inter managed to compensate with Mourinho's tactical thinking and important additions like Milito and especially Eto'o.

The thing is, as soon as we lost Ibrahimović, we started to look toothless in attack with Allegri. A year gone already, and we still played the occasional long ball as if the ghost of Zlatan would somehow resurrect.


Again, sorry, my bad.

To be fair, you've lost me on this one. You said Torres did well in a crap Liverpool side and created things for himself. Now you're saying you were talking about the current Liverpool side. I don't really follow. Torres doesn't play in the current Liverpool side.

I think Torres has always been hugely overrated, though. One season with 20 or more league goals?

Yeah, I forgot my original post on the subject. Got mixed up. Torres' Liverpool was indeed sh*t, but nowhere near as bad as this one.



I'd still rather have him in his heyday than this dreadful piece of cr*p.

wtf

Yeah I don't see any reason to bring in Okaka - our issue is not a lack of creativity in the last third, it's the link between midfield AND the last third which is non-existent. We have, theoretically, a decent (ish) attack. Menez, SES, Honda, Torres (EL OH EL), Pazzo - we just have no cohesion with it from midfield.

But let's face it, it's still a horrible attack compared with our former peers like Barca, Real, Juve etc. Indeed it's a horrible attack compared to most top league mid positions.

We are interested in Marcelo Brozovic, 22-y-o CM that plays for Dinamo Zagreb. They've already declined a loan and want €8 million, against the €4 million Galliani is willing to offer. Dortmund and Arsenal are also very interested in him. Against Italy, he played as DM in the double pivot, but can also play as AM. So, I'd assume he's a creative midfielder.

Link

Fillipo?

Hm, I don't think he's exactly what we need. He can play DM and AM but isn't exactly a classic player for either position. Something in-between. I'm rather skeptical, even if he's a big talent here in Croatia.

Silva linked with a return to San Siro next season CDS.

BS.

Why not?

Why would they sell him?

Well, he's 30 and maybe he wants to end his career with Milan for the last 3-4 seasons. We very well know where his heart is. If PSG don't make a considerable challenge for the CL this season, maybe he'll feel it's time to move on. I know this is stretching things and just wishful thinking, but who knows what PSG plans for next season.

30 is not too much, especially for a defender. Silva can be top class for the next 3-4 years no problem. Again, I see no reason why PSG would sell him. If he wants to end his career at Milan, he'll have to wait until his contract runs out (2018).

Still need a striker and the best names we get linked to are Liverpool failure Suso and Marseille's underwhelming Gignac.

Utter depressing the dross we get associated with.

Has Silva been injured? I notice Marquinhos and David Luiz have both played more than him this season.

He's lost a great deal of his star quality. Loss of form and injury last season. He's not the Silva we sold although he remains their club captain.

Gignac has scored 11 goals in 13 games so far, with Marseille being first. That's not bad.

Look at his career stats. He's 28. Another one having a purple patch now and it'll probably stop soon as he arrives. But his overall stats for Marseille are not exactly stunning. And it's an easier league to score in than Serie A. If he was a truly great striker he'd have got a gig in Serie A, La Liga, EPL, Germany etc before now.

You're right, not bad. For a Genoa. But we're Milan and this is the kind of striker we go for now.

Rumors about a Torres-Cerci swap today but apparently Atletico declined.

REALLY?!

Wonder how that one went:

Galliani: "Hello. Was wondering if you'd like a turd...sorry, a Torres, and you give us £20M rated Allesio Cerci in return?"

Atletico: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA NO"

Dortmund are interested in El Shaarawy. They want to sign him this January.

Link

Yes, please!

Tuttosport claims that Milan and Inter will try to sign Destro as they are looking for a replacement for Pazzini and Icardi, respectively.

Milan had scouts present during Dortmund-Anderlecht two days ago (to watch Sahin, Gündogan, Immobile, Mbemba, Tielemans and Mitrovic).

source: Milanello/twitter

Destro is totally overrated. I wouldn't like him with us.

Confirmed. They've made contact in the past 24 hours regarding his availability. Word also is Silvio wants a new formation - 4:3:1:2.

If we can get £15M+ for SES it's good business. They need a replacement for Reus who's rumoured to be off to Spain, and the world seems deluded into thinking SES is a good player. So...we could even get more. He has no baggage, so maybe a good £25M for him?

He's been a diabolical signing.

What's for sure is we are aching for a good striker. Immobile is a slightly underwhelming target but he's better than both Balo and Torres combined.

If we're going to sell SES to Dortmund I'd personally rather offer him + cash and get someone like Gundogan off them if it were possible. Immobile is no great shake either.

Personally I don't think this deal will happen anyway.

If Pippo really wanted to switch to a 4-3-1-2 he would have by now, SES is more a striker than a winger anyway. It's obvious he's sticking with the 4-3-3 no matter what considering he plays Honda as a winger and Menez as a "false 9"

Welcome back

I think Milan will invest in this window, they need to support this coach and further reinforce the team.

Though I believe the attack is the last department that we should be looking to change, the lack of goals from our strikers is worrying, SES is good but maybe in Arsenal he would be the world beater.

That said, I think a striker is necessary in this window.

Couldn't happen to a better club. That is unless they make a man out of him, and he fits in their plans. Otherwise, it'll just be a bad signing for them at a time when they cannot afford bad signings. We'll see.

Not a fan of BVB Acid!

Yeah, who cares really. I'd be a bit carefully with Borussia players these days. They look good, but not many of them truly are (IMO). This is partly what happened this season too.

Why isn't Milan trying to sign someone from Brazil ? Or that ship sailed when we screwd things up with Leonardo ?

I think Milan should get back to signing Brazilians. We had good experience with them at least.

Also, since I've not been here for some time, I don't think I can stress it enough on what a big mistake selling Bryan Cristante was.

But above all, I think the team is underachieving since we have some good players and that (underachieving) is mostly cos of the bad tactics. If I were Inzaghi (glad I'm not), I'd play something like this:


----------El Shaarawy - Menez
------------------ Honda
----------- Montolivo - Poli
------ ----------- De Jong
De Sciglio - Mexes - Rami - Abate
----------------- D.Lopez

And if I could have one wish granted, since we're on the winter transfers thread, I'd transfer Shaqiri and play 4-5-1 with El Shaarawy and Shaqiri on the wings.



Thank you

Hey, I welcomed you back too and you ignored me

I'm sorry man, I really didn't see that. Thank you and again I'm really sorry.