Axel.

And he's a Belgian international (one of the best footballing nations around right now) who has played at the highest level in the world cup, as well as being as at ease in Russia as he was in Portugal.

At 26 he has almost 60 caps. For a team as strong as Belgium that's superb.

It's more a puzzle why no massive teams have picked him up than it is as to why we rate him so highly.

Zenit don't really need the cash and they don't want to let him go.

The only way we'll sign him is if he pushes his way out and we are all in for him, not the half hearted intentions we have now though

Also re Niang, he's hardly the guy we're pinning anything on. Once the season started he wasn't going to be getting much of a look in anyway

He was 23 when he joined Zenit. He earns a very high salary there and Zenit don't need any money, hence there was no reason for him leave. But I guess the time has come for him to join a big club. At 26, that's the perfect age. Chelsea, Juve and PSG have already shown interest for him.

I think what Pippo's getting at is why did he go to the bowels of Russian football when he was this rising star at a maturing age and why did no one else in a better league want him instead.

And why did no one throw any big bids at Zenit?

There, see? I can be be impartial!

He is still brilliant and he'd be a fantastic signing for us.

Because no-one else was willing to spend €40 million for him at the time like Zenit did. And he wasn't exactly a star back then, just like he isn't a star right now either. He's just a really good midfielder who would help us a lot.

And just because no-one bid for him in the last couple of years doesn't underestimate his value. Like I said, Zenit didn't need any money and Witsel was happy playing for them. But perhaps now the time has arrived for him to try a new adventure, and if an important bid does come Zenit will probably have to accept if the player also agrees with the new destination.

Indian club Pune City have offered us $250,000 for Zaccardo, but the player has refused the new destination.

Link

How many offers has this leech refused so far? What a total and utter piece of %^&*.

PSG owner Nasser Al-Khelaifi slammed the door on Milan. “Zlatan Ibrahimovic has a contract and will stay with us.”

The Rossoneri never disguised their intention of bringing Ibra back to San Siro this summer under new Coach Sinisa Mihajlovic.

“Ibrahimovic has a contract for one more year and will stay with us,” announced Al-Khelaifi during today’s Press conference.

He was speaking at the presentation of new midfielder Angel Di Maria from Manchester United.


Source: http://www.football-italia.net/70662/psg-ibrahimovic-stays

- I guess we can forget about Ibra then..

In other news Roma are expected to finalise the deal of Dzeko for 14million

Why didnt we sign Dzeko at that price ? We spent 30 million on Bacca when Dzeko was available.

I think 14 million pounds = 20 mil euros. Iagree though, I'd rather have Dzeko..

I'm with him on this one. Ex-Rangers goalie Steve Simonsen ended up there - they're an absolute joke, and their unveiling of him was something below pathetic.

I wouldn't go to Pune City if you paid me either.

Yeah, that's what you get when you offer players more money they are worth so we can get them "parametro zero". I would like to think that we have learned our lessons, but I am not sure that's the case.

FWIW, Pune is the only place in India I have been to (+Mumbai on the way there). Lots of IT and R&D outsourcing companies (which is why I went there). Nice town, but serious pollution plus it gets very hot for most of the year, so I guess I really cannot blame the guy.

Interesting article. Makes some of the same points as I have seen on this forum, namely we really need a better midfield and in particular we need a creative mid (and Witsel will not give us that). The writer recommends we go after either Gundogan, Maher, or Tielemans.

It'd be alright if this was the first offer he was rejecting, but it's one of the many he has since he joined us. It's like he just wants to do nothing and earn money. Fucking leech I say!

Roma has signed Salah as well. Meanwhile, we keep rubbing each-other's dicks.

Galliani and Sabatini will meet in the weekend for Romagnoli. With Dzeko and Salah being now official, Roma could cave in to our offer.

Paletta's agent said that if Romagnoli comes they'll ask to leave. Atalanta are interested in him. Our asking price: €2 million.

There will be another phone call between us and Zenit this weekend for Witsel. Zenit keep asking €35 million, we're willing to arrive at €30 million plus €5 million bonuses

Source: Sportmediaset

My God. Now I see what han was talking about. This transfer period could end up with Milan spending more then a 100 million and still not make a serious move in quality.

I really doubt that Witsel is worth €35 million.

Well, if we do sign both Witsel and Romagnoli, then it's something. We won't be Scudetto challengers, but we could possibly aim for that 3rd spot, which is imperative.

However, the fact that we still won't have made a huge leap in quality even after spending €100 million just shows you how far we fallen and how much work (and money) is needed to get us back on top again. €100 million is just not enough. Let's make it €200 million and we'll talk again.

#thePowerOfGalliani



I think the fact that a bunch of idiots are running this club is why this is happening. Even worse, those idiots trust a bigger idiot with a huge budget. After a decade of failures in the transfer market.

Galliani here is the problem. And anyone who says he's a genius negotiator needs to GTFO!

Already said this but:

Was going to pay the buyout for Jackson
Was going to pay the asking price for Kondogbia
Paid the buyout for Bacca
Paid the full 8m Shakhtar asked for Adriano with only 6 months left on his contract
Paid the full asking price Roma set for Romagnoli
About to pay 25m for a player who's only had 1 decent season with Samp and would have never been a starter at Roma
About the pay the asking price for Witsel (if that really ever happens)

And imo the level of quality in the squad is still EL level. I personally don't see us getting 3rd, even if we also bring those 2 in without Ibra. LikeI said in the match thread, Witsel is great, but not exactly what we desperately need in midfield and really, I don't see Romagnoli giving our defence that much of a boost. He'd be an obvious improvement over Zapata but not much else.

All this at over a 100m.

I've said from the start that Galliani is simply not good enough anymore and he has proven this so far this summer. The only redeeming action he could make is to sign Ibra at a good price. Other than that I really think this summer transfer window has overall not been that good considering all the money we spent

I guess Inter and Atletico who paid the buyout clauses for Kondogbia and Jackson are also idiots then.

And Romagnoli is labeled the new Nesta by nearly everyone, and €25 million might be a stretch, but it's still acceptable.

The only gripe I have with the signings we've made is with Bertolacci. I think we rushed things there, and went on overpaying for a player who in my honest opinion will result in a huge letdown.

If we had signed Kondogbia, though, I have would have been ecstatic regardless of the price. The guy has the potential to become a star. Whether he'll fulfill that potential, that's another matter entirely.

Told you to forget about third. Said that at the start of Mercato.

As far as I'm concerned, he can be labeled as the new Franco Baresi, I still mistrust a player who's had only one good season at a minor club. And say, was he even that good at Samp? During the season I cannot recall even once being mentioned by someone here as a good prospect. But well, let's hope. Surely our guys have better insight in the matter.

Luiz Adriano is a pointless signing as well if you ask me, adds up to nothing. And we didn't exactly sign him for peanuts also.

Problem is, I believe that a better signing strategy, a better coach and clear targets would have brought us considerably better players.

I don't think Atletico paid the full buyout, they came close to it, but last I read on the subject Jackson pushed his way out, especially after he rejected us he put Porto in a difficult situation. Also, I don't think you can compare the 2 situations, Atletico are already established and doing great, they have a very good team. They're not a team like us who in reality should have started building from the ground up but instead were about to throw 35m on a striker when other positions were in (and still are) in dire need of improvements. The fact that we went ahead and still spent ridiculous money on a striker as our first move mostly just shows how twisted Galliani's priorities are

As for Kondogbia, he's no were near worth what Inter paid for him imo, no matter his potential. I said as soon as both deals fell through that w dodged a bullet there. We were going to pay by too much, and considering that we still would have had the very same issues we have now (lack of creativity) that would have needed to be addressed, spending all that money on just those 2 wouldn't have made sense.

Just like Ranocchi and Bonucci were labelled that as well?

Young players get hyped all the time. Fact is he's only really had one season under his belt playing as a starter in Serie A, that's not enough to justify that price tag, especially when he would be considered a bench warmer at Roma if he stays

Bertolacci and Adriano imo are pointless signings and wastes of money


I don't think many of us here watch Samp regularly to come with any sort of assessment of him, still I don't ever remember him catching my eye when we played them last season and I don't recall anyone else mentioning him either, on not just on this forum, in general over the internet or when talking to anyone personally

Agreed with the rest.

I think Galliani has massively overspent in this window, especially when looking at who other teams signed for similar fees that we spent.

No, Atletico paid the full release clause for Jackson, 100% sure about it. And we needed a CF just as much as we need a CM and a CB now, I don't care what you say. If we hadn't made a move for Bacca someone else might have snatched him and we would have been left with nothing but going after someone mediocre like Eder.

As for Romagnoli, the more appropriate question would be: is he worth the risk? Ranocchia failed at Inter, but Bonucci proved to be a success for Juve. With these young defenders there's always a high margin of risk, so it really depends on whether we are willing to take it.

I'm not sure about Jackson, like I said, last I read he was making it difficult for Porto because Atletico's offer was lower than ours. Not going to contradict you on this as I didn't continue to follow the story once it was clear he was going there.

He's still not worth that imo, especially for a player who has never played in a top league, at least Bacca was producing in Spain, which makes the money we paid look better spent.

And I disagree about who we needed most being a striker. A striker like Bacca or Jackson especially who both rely on service. If we can't get a proper team behind Bacca he'll fail, just like all the strikers who've played for us since Ibra. Making the signing entirely useless

Bonucci has far from turned out into what he was hyped into becoming. He's a great passer and a decent defender, but he can be a bit of a liability at times. Especially for Italy

Bacca used to be very efficient with Sevilla. I know our midfield is very bad, but then again, is Sevilla really that creative? That strong in the service department?

Bonucci may not have turned into Nesta but he paid off and became good, that's the point. Every defender except a few god-like players have their moments of mistakes and pose a small liability. I'd say Bonucci is very good.

Now, X-O asked a good question. It's however not answerable, yet. What I'd like to know is why are we so set that Romagnoli is the right guy? Did Mihajlović persuade Galliani and the medias did the rest or is there more to it? That's my main concern.

Well if you look at it like that you can say that Matri for example did well at Cagliari with a much worse team behind him, so why couldn't he cut it with us. Or basically any player who's at a smaller club and makes the move to a bigger club

It depends on how that player adapts to the team's system, or he can choke and just fail there because he's not cut out for playing in a bigger side.

There are a lot of factors that play into it. But we've had a lot of strikers over the years, basically with Zlatan being the only one who really succeeded after the Sheva era. Pato had the potential and the team behind him but things went the way they did for him and I wouldn't call him a typical CF either. Since Ibra we've had Balo, Pazzini, Matri, Torres, Destro (am I missing anyone?) all classic CFs or poachers and they've all struggled to be prolific or were just plain old failures. And this imo had a bit to do with them not being all that great but also with the fact that our strikers play a very isolated game thanks to us not having a midfield that provides that support. When you have a striker who spends 90 minutes roaming about and barely ever getting a touch of the ball, which happened a lot last season it's not simply is fault for not being good. Balo and Menez when he played the false 9 got involved because they dropped very deep, and Balo scored good chunk of goals which were very individualistic/efforts from distance

Bonucci for me is just decent, he works well in the Juve set-up as he's really adapted there, but whenever I see him for Italy it's just one huge face palm

I think it's pretty obvious that Miha was the one who pushed for him, he practically said as much to the press

With Pazzini out of contract and Destro returning to Roma we would have been left with Menez, El Shaarawy, Matri, and Niang. Would you really have gone into the season with that strike force? If not, who would you have gotten at better value than we got for Bacca?

I personally would have rather gone into the season with that strike force but with a top notch midfield behind them and a good CB added to the defence

Also, strikers like Dzeko and Mandzukic went for much less. So we could have still made a smart purchase in attack but held the big money for midfield and a CB.

I think that would have been the smarter thing to do

As for how I'd spend the 60m we spent on just strikers and Berto, I'd go, Witsel (30m), Moutinho (~24m according to reports) and still get Mauri for free.

And since you're making the striker issue a bigger one than it is imo, Mandzkuic went for 16m if I'm not mistaken so if you add all 3 up that's 70m and the quality in our midfield has already jumped about 10 notches from what it currently is while also having a deadly striker upfront for much cheaper. But the 2 mids would be first priority.

Like others, I am a bit concerned about how things have turned out so far in the transfer season, and I have serious questions about this Romagnoli dude (with what we are willing to pay for him, he better be the next Nesta!).

OTOH, it may just be possible that our recent embarrassments against Bayern and the Spurs have woken someone up, as a couple of articles seem to indicate that midfield has become our priority now (for example, this and this). Of course, some of the names we are being linked with worry me (KPB, really? Soriano? sounds like another Miha obsession), but others may hold promise (Maher and Biglia).

In other news, this makes it sound like we may have dodged a bullet with Kondogbia. Though, if correct, it makes me wonder how we pick players we go after.

Also, apparently Marotta believes Milan and Inter are going to be more serious challengers for Juve than Roma this year. Have to wonder what he is smoking ...

Sky and MilanNews both reporting that tomorrow is the day for Romagnoli, Galliani and Sabatini will meet in Forte dei Marmi to finalize the deal, they're also saying that we've already agreed terms with the player, so things could move really quick tomorrow should Galliani get the okay from Sabatini

I don't think we could have convinced either one of those players to come to Milan over where they went. Both of the other teams have a more complete project where they could be the "final piece of the puzzle."

I'm also uncovinced by Moutinho and that he would be available for that price. I like Bertolacci even if the price was a bit steep. I'm hoping it's offset somewhat by pushing out Nocerino and Montolivo or Poli for 10-15m total.

Sevilla functions as a team. Whether they have a more creative midfield or not doesn't matter if they can still produce assists for their strikers.



You're looking at it the wrong way, Han. I'm not saying that we needed a striker more than a CB and a CM, but rather, we need all of them. If we had signed Romagnoli, Witsel, Moutinho and Mauri first we'd have still been left threadbare in attack, with no main striker to score those goals you win games with. The point is that going for strikers doesn't exclude the others. They're all equally important for us to reach success.

Dzeko is a documented Milan fan, I'm sure he would have loved to join. But we never really looked at him this summer

Moutinho has been a consistently very good midfielder for a while now. I've had my eye on him since his Sporting days, and bottom line is that's he's a much better player than Bertolacci, he has characteristics that would have been a lot more useful for our team than Bertolacci's and has had experience with bigger teams and in the CL.

Last I read 24m was the going price. Monaco are basically open to selling anyone atm as their owner is no longer invested in the project as he was before. Also with them wanting SES and us doing them a solid by accepting the loan with option offer we could have used that to our advantage in any negotiations we entered


It's not about how I'm looking at it, but prioritising. And imo, even though the striker position was also important it would have come in as my last priority compared to midfield, which was and still is at a critical point, and then the defence as second.

Look at Juve for example when they took the title right out from under us.

They had the shittiest strike force of probably any title winning side in quite some time. But they had a very solid defensive set-up with good players and an awesome midfield trio that Conte had drilled like a machine.

That defence and that midfield is why they remained unbeaten that season, and sure they drew a good few games but they were such a well oiled machine that they managed to win the league even with the flaws in attack

Probably as close to 'I was wrong' as we'll ever get on that topic from you

But does it matter whether we sign the striker first or last? The order isn't important, what's important is that we sign all the players we need. That's what I'm trying to say.

Romagnoli was official few days back.. Nothing else big happened since then I suppose

Mostly rumors about Soriano. Depressingly usual.

There have been developments:

Witsel's representatives are being met in about a week to discuss something - we want to offer 25M but Zenit want 35M.

Ibra has said he either wants an extension or to leave now - and we're far from the favourites to land him if he does quit.

There was a crazy link pitting us with Kovacic but he looks like he's Madrid bound.

So...we've ended up bidding for another mediocre Serie A midfielder but I forget who it was.

Oh, and Paletta and Alex are on their way out.

Oh, and Miha would need to persaude Silvio about Soriano.

That's what happens when the forum is down for more than two minutes.

So virtually nothing? Witsel is on hold for weeks, Ibra is a pipe dream, mediocre players going out (Zapata linked with Everton), mediocre names mentioned as links. But nothing concrete as far as I know.

We're playing a waiting game with both Witsel and Ibra. Not sure if it'll work.

Zapata was only as a replacement for Stones. But they're holding onto him for now.

According to Mediaset, we're going for Soriano as Witsel costs too much. That's what Silvio, Galliani and Miha decided last night after the match.

OLEE

Willing to shell out the full whack on the brilliance of Bacca, but not on the wizardry of Witsel.

I don't get it.

Press today claim Ibra's been told he can leave.

Which doesn't quite tally up with him threatening to quit or extension. But either way, speculation is he is on his way, but the links with us fade every more every passing day.

Silvio did say something posiitve about him like we await him so i think that could be a lst day recurit

What do you mean with fade?

Anyway, Zenit is asking for too much. Witsel isn't worth that money, I'm 100% sure.

No, he's not, but who cares. It's not like it's your or my money. Whether we pay 25 or 35 million won't change anything.

Reduce.



When you spend 35M on a player, you get Bacca. Folks on here didn't think he was worth the money either, and he's proving that very wrong indeed.

But X does make a good point; who cares - just pay the money and get the player!

http://www.football-italia.net/71191/berlu...udetto%E2%80%99

We all know his name?? So I guess it is Witsel yeah???

Sorino unfortunately it seems