In what way?

I believe that the Bee deal and Milan's high spending this summer wasn't just a coincidence. Berlusconi expected high cash inflow so he gave Galliani a big transfer kit to play around with. Let's not forget that Berlusconni covers Milan losses each year, and that's without the tremendous 80 million spent. So, imagine how big would the Milan losses be for this year.

It's not to say that I'm sad for him or anything. He deserves it given he's given the incompetent Galliani free roam for such a long time.

This may actually be good news. A Chinese group is looking to acquire the team, and in particular "i nuovi eventuali proprietari del club di via Aldo Rossi non accetterebbero di buon grado di avere molti uomini legati a Berlusconi nella governance e anzi prevederebbero un ruolo piuttosto defilato per l'attuale numero 1 della società, che potrebbe ambire al massimo alla presidenza onoraria", which means Galliani is out and Berlu honorary president (if that). The Chinese government is pouring a lot of money in football (look at some of the recent transfers), and (in general) they tend to be "business savvy", so one has to hope.

I just hope something happens. This whole thing is turning into a classic Milan transfer saga.

Would be a blessing if this ended up being the way for Galliani to finally be out though

But I'm done with making plans in my head. Look at the past: so many "done-deals", who knows what the outcome and endgame will be.

Good thing we did not end up with Kondogbia.

Actually, you guys spoke of a mercato failure and whined about not signing Jackson Martinez and Kondogbia. Now look how things turned for the better.

Well I actually said that losing out on them could have been a blessing in disguise for us, but it was still a monumentally embarrassing saga in the transfer window for us none-the-less. Which has become something of an expectation each summer for us now

Chelsea signed Sheva, he failed. Madrid signed Kaká, he failed. You cannot predict how a signing may turn out, but on paper both Kondogbia and Martinez were better than Bertolacci and Bacca. And it's not like the former has actually justified the money spent on him.

Oh come on, now you've completely missed!

Have I?

Oh wow, I just realized Martinez has signed for Guangzhou. WTF

Yes, I think you have.

Firstly, Kaka and Shevchenko are completely different types of failures. Both past their primes, they failed to adapt to a completely new league. But Sheva and Ricky were great players.

Jackson and Kondogbia were overpriced gambles. If you ask me personally, every player (striker) who's past 26 or 27 and who's only achievement is a few good seasons with Porto is suspicious at best. If you take a look at his career it certainly doesn't validate the price tag. Kondogbia is still a question mark, but I think he's a failed acquisition as well. Anyway, my point is, had we signed him and Martinez the forum here (bar han and a few others) would be jubilant, no doubt. We'd mark the summer market as a success.

Who would have thought that our second choices would turn out much much better?

In fairness to X, I think the jury is still out on Bertolacci. He has played much better recently than the beginning of the season but, in my opinion, he needs to see more improvement before we can deem that transfer a success.

A least Berto cost us much less than Kondogbia cost Inter in transfer fees not to mention all the add-ons they put into his deal to convince him Inter were the best choice.

I think at this point it's safe to say we got off the best we could in all the 4 deals concerned

Berto might not have added much to our midfield, but at least we're not letting a player who will cost us well upward of a 100m over the course of his contract rot on the bench because he's useless

Exactly

Yep, not saying that Galliani pulled out a masterstroke here, it was more a plain dumb luck kind of situation for us.

And not that Berto turned into the next Sneijder for us either but at least he's decent and useful. Same could be said of Kucka tbh, he's useful for us, which is more than can be said for Kondogbia

We obviously need much more to be truly competitive than players who are mid-range like Berto and Kucka are but they can still put in a shift for us on a regular basis

Now this is not to say that we didn't overpay for Berto because we obviously did, but not by the margin that Inter did with Kondogbia.

Yes, OK, but my point was that any signing can turn into a failure or otherwise. Just like Martinez' only achievements were with Porto, Bacca's only achievements were with Sevilla. That's hardly an improvement, yet he turned into the better signing in the end. As Han said, we just got lucky, but our initial complaints were legitimate.

?

A good signing is a good one, a bad is a bad one. What are you talking about? I mean if you sign someone for 40M and he turns out useless and in adaptable, it's a pretty bad one. If you say, sign a free player or a Sheva who fails to link up with you team, it's not that bad.

Sure, but the thing with Bacca is, he performed with Sevilla for 2 years constantly, whereas Martinez always had ups and downs.

What remains to be said is, people jump the gun here. I remember this forum went crazy for not seeing and signing the next Vieira in Kondogbia. Half of you here were ready to give what Inter decided to give. Yet now you come up with excuses like "any signing can turn into a failure"

What?? It's twice as bad if you sign a Sheva who fails, because you're signing a champion, a sure firearm that's supposed to deliver.

With someone like Kondogbia it's always a gamble. You're signing someone with potential but that might not fulfill expectations. Granted, it's a gamble worth taking, but still a gamble. So, the fact that he failed to deliver is within the risk associated with making such a signing.

But when Chelsea signed Sheva or Madrid signed Kaká, they got screwed big time. That's the difference between signing champions and signing young prospects with potential. The former have no excuses because they're established world class players. Failing to link up with the team? That's a petty, petty justification.



Really now?

Last two seasons of Martinez with Porto:

51 games - 29 goals
41 games - 32 goals

Last two season of Bacca with Sevilla:

52 games - 21 goals
56 games - 28 goals

Well...

For me, Kondogbia could still justify the price tag that they paid for him. Mancini is clearly the problem, I have watched a lot of Inter games this year and in the past and Mancini is a terrible manager for developing talent. Kondogbia is in and out of the side every week and when he does play he is deployed in a different position every game. Sometimes he is played as a regista other times as a playmaker, next game a box to box. Mancini did the same thing to Kovacic. The kid would play out of his skin one game then sit for the next three. Makes no sense. When you pay that much for a player especially a younger one, they should be the undisputed starter until they can integrate into the team. Miha is much better with young players. Look at Romagnoli, he is the first name on the team sheet if he is able t play. It's too much pressure for a young player to have to prove himself every week is his name is on the chopping block, especially in a team like Milan and Inter of today. Barcelona is a different story of course.

Mancini is an average coach, only ever won anything by throwing money at it until they got a result. With Inter he won because they were the only team not weakened by Calciopoli, then Man City they threw money at the situation until they got a favorable result, look at how many players they burned through before they won. Look at Inter now and you can see he doesn't know what he's doing. Their midfield is broken and he keeps pushing Felipe Melo and pushed them to get him another forward in Eder. He pushed for Melo so hard at the end of the summer like he would take their midfield to the next level. What a joke that is. They threw money at a bunch of players and they have all flopped except for Miranda, probably the best defender this year. The guy has no sense of the problem or how to fix it. If they didn't have Miranda and Handanovic they would be behind us even.

As for Berto, I wouldn't say he is a flop, 20 Mil seems like a huge sum of money but in the market of today is a blip on the radar. The key for us and what looks like the plan going forward is looking like throwing ~10 mil at younger guys with good potential instead of buying world class players we are looking to develop players which seems like a good plan with the coach we have and the amount of money we are looking to spend yearly. Names like El Ghazi and Mammana have been circulating which is promising. Even if we sell these guys down the road for three times as much if we keep investing smaller sums in younger players this model could be healthy for the team. Look at Juve, they buy up all the young Italian talent, funnel them into the team and the ones that don'e make it get sold for a lot of money which gets recycled into the next group of young talent. It also allows the team to keep the salary budget low and have some money to invest in quality foreign players.

Not a lot of news these days, and mostly not promising.
- Financial problems continue, may have to sell what few good players we have
- Some potential interest in Chinese buyers, but they want more than 50% and the valuation is lower than Mr. Bee's
- Berlu not willing to sell a majority share

Sounds like it is going to be more of the same for a while ...

Berlu not willing to sell a majority share when the team is plummeted in financial troubles and mediocrity. I'll never understand this man. But then again, he f*cked his own country so might as well f*ck his own club too.

I don't see him ever selling.

When the team is bad - why sell low?
When the team is good - why sell at all?

I think we'll have to wait for him to die (as bad as that sounds), pretty sure the first thing Barbara and his other children will do is to sell up a major stake while keeping a spot on the board of directors.

Papers here linking Milan with Jordan Veretout. He's okay, but I wouldn't touch anyone in Villa's current team, one of the worst EPL teams in history.

I don't like the 4-4-2 and would rather get in wingers . Inter linked with Mertens, Candreva. I think they want Candreva as their first choice, but I'd be very happy with Mertens who I can't see staying. Anyone else a fan, or no?

Mertens is definitely the better option to Candreva. Another Cerci imo who won't do anything past Lazio

Somehow I was under the impression Bacca did better. My bad.

You say its a petty justification, but reducing Kondogbia's failure to just "not linking up" with the team is a clear understatement. Man, the player looks completely useless, no speed, no precision, no forward-going thinking. Sure, with better linkup it could be argued some of his negative aspects would vanish or shrink. But still....

Anyway, I'm only trying to establish some responsibility and fairness. You guys thought that getting Martinez and Kondogbia would be the right way, many of you were prepared to label the summer transfer campaign a success with those two and some other adds. Now that both turned up pretty disastrous, you act like it's nothing and move on.