Yeah, take notice: 23rd of December, Abu Dhabi. Supercoppa final, Juventus-Milan. Maybe the inaugural final of a new era? Who knows.

Anyway. I think 4-3-3 is doable, but more importantly - that's what Montella will play IMO. My picks would be:

Lopez; Abate, Zapata, Romagnoli, De Sciglio; Montolivo, Bertolacci, Bonaventura (Poli); Niang, Suso (Bonaventura), Bacca.

About Donnarumma. I'd seriously sit back a little on this. He was plain awful against Bayern.

Isn't Lopez going to Chelsea?

Fell through. Chelsea couldn't get rid of Begovic so they won't be signing Lopez. Who we were also willing to let go for free might I add, instead of trying to get some cash in for a good player we were going to give him for free just to get his wages off the books

Also, I'm with Fillipo on this one, I'm not convinced by Donna, and I do think we should slow our role a bit with him. We've jumped head first into it with no reliable back up aside from Gabriel who I far from trust

Indeed. Last season we had veterans like Abbiati and Lopez holding the ladder to Donna. With them probably gone (Abbiati already retired), I'm very skeptic. Yes, you gotta play youth and create your brands/franchise players. But let's take a look at De Sciglio who didn't benefit much of our environment.

Linked with Isco, Cuadrado, and even Witsel.

Hopefully not Witsel.

Isco would be a dream pick up. With Isco and Cuadrado I think we'd be in pretty decent shape for the season.

Why not?

Because he's a second-rate midfielder who's vastly overrated just because he plays in a sexy and fancy NT. The last Euro proved what I've already suspected. A 27 year old midfielder who plays at Zenith, limited vision and capabilities, usually just running up and down like Flamini used to for us. I think he'd be a waste of space and time, since we already have Poli and Kučka. We need a marquee player, some like Bastian, Kovačić, Cuadrado or Valero. Not Witsel IMO.

Also, I'd prefer Kovacic over Isco, I think he'd fit in better in Montella's midfield.

Imo, we need someone to replace all 3 of our current starting mids. Berto, Monto and Kucka could be good rotation players, but they're not good enough to be starting. Imo we needs all of Witsel, Bastian and Kovacic for that midfield 3 and I honestly think it's do-able, at this point I would forget about Cuadrado and just sign these 3

We can probably get Bastian on a free as Mourinho has basically shunned him from his squad. Kovacic I'm thinking we can get him for a loan + obligation for around 25m (when the cash comes in) and Witsel would be an upgrade on Kucka but someone we'd have to put money upfront for. And I sort of agree with Fillipo on this one. I don't think Witsel is as great as some might think he is. He's farily one dynamic and doesn't offer much but the players who I'd love to have to fill in a box-to-box role in our midfield (Radja, Matuidi, Sissoko, etc) would be out of our reach.

Don't get your hopes up, Han. Berto, Kucka and Monto will probably be our starting mids next season, unless we get someone decent on loan.

We'll see. Problem is, Montella's system relies heavily on creative, dynamic mids. So if those 3 remain as is for the starting trio, we'll have problems.

Bigger than last season as Miha was mostly able to grind out a couple of results by by-passing the midfield and playing a rigid 4-4-2, something Montella won't be able/willing to do

Linked with Badelj

Please no.

I feel like we should just concentrate on signing 2/3 players max who are worthy than going after every available player on the market right now.

Don't worry, they will bring in the players they like. Not the players we like.

Fact

P.s. and it has nothing to do with Galliani, even if he is the one negotiating

Just as I suspected, by selling Pogba Juventus took a step back at their goals.

Really? I see it differently. Pogba is a massively overrated player that NEVER shows up in the big games. They got him for free 3 years ago, and they're selling him for €110 million! That is absolute genius.

Juventus are much better off with Pjanic and Higuain than they were with just Pogba. Not to mention they're going to replace him anyway. Rumors say Matiudi, who IMO is better than Pogba.

New rumors on Isco. Loan with obligation to buy.

Link

I really wish we just signed Isco and Musacchio and called it a day. Better than going after a bunch of subpar players like Sosa, Badelj, Zaza etc. that will accomplish nothing in the end.

You know that Pogba is 23, right? Ronaldo has been called a choker in big games as well, look how it turned up.

The commercial side of the story is less interesting. Sure, they've earned a load of money on him. But at the same time they gave away a substantial proportion of that money for Higuain. Are they honestly better that way now? I don't think so.

Matuidi certainly isn't better then Pogba. And we'll see if they even sign him in the first place.

Um, he's 23, so what? That's old enough. It's not like he's 18 or something. And don't compare him to Ronaldo cos they're entirely different players.

The commercial side might be less interesting for you, but you do realize they just gained 110 million out of nothing. That's 15% of the whole sum Berlusconi is selling Milan, just for one player.

And are you seriously telling me that a Juve with Pjanic and Higuain but without Pogba isn't better than the contrary? Nope, I don't buy that for a bit.

Matiudi certainly isn't better? Where do you get that certainty from? What exactly has Pogba accomplished to be considered the most expensive player in the world? Nothing.

Okay, okay, we seem to disagree completely.

By stating that he's 23 I meant to say that there's still lots of potential within him. He can surpass this apparent choker attitude you seem to worry about. He has immense physical capabilities, he is skilled and has great technique and intelligence. He's played a Euro final, a CL final, won tons of Italian trophies - since you ask. A now let me ask you. What has a 29 year old Matuidi ever done to be considered better?

But I don't like such debates, I only stated the question to indulge you and point to some evident flaws in logic. I think what's important is that Pogba is still in his formative years and shows lots of promise to be one of the better midfielders of the new age. Matuidi is on a downward spiral.

Sure, the commercial aspect is brilliant. Again, we are not talking about this stuff. Sure it's a great deal commercially. I'm looking at the footballing aspect. With Alves, Pjanić, Pjaca and Higuain in and Pogba, Morata, Cuadrado out I don't see much important improvement in terms of CL quality/pretender material. Sorry.

I like Matuidi a lot, but I seriously don't think he's better than Pogba

Also, think back to the beginning of last season when Pogba was injured and Juve were struggling. They started to claw their way back once he was back in the team. He's a huge talent, and in today's crazy transfer climate he's worth what United have paid. Don't think that's the case with Juve an Higuain though. He's no where near worth that. Sure he's a proven Serie A striker who will easily score 25+ goals in the league alone. But they were going to walk all over the league with or without Higuain. His signing was a frivolous one meant to soften the blow of selling Pogba.

Are Juve better off now that they've sold arguably their best and most marketable player? I honestly don't think so, not in terms of the CL which is their goal for next season. Pjanic and Higuain are both great players, but they've lost someone who's on another level and will continue to get better in the coming years.

I personally think it's a blow to them footballing wise. Forget what they got for him, which they pretty much spent all of it and then some on Higuain (90+ million and Pjanic 30+ million)

I guess the idea of trowing that much money at Higuain was that they would have a better chance to win the CL. I am not a huge fan of Higuain (very good player, but not great, AFAIAC). And the loss of Pogba may cause them more problems than they realize. Have to wonder if we are going to see more of an "Allegri style" Juve now, and it will be interesting to see how that will work for them. (Most likely they will win the scudetto again, but they may not do as well in CL as they are hoping.)

That said, this does show what a well-managed team can do. When Juve got Pogba, he was not that expensive. Juve went for a young player with promise, and (right or wrong) they are now "cashing in". Meanwhile, we went for ... what? A bunch of nameless players, which we overpaid and could not / cannot get rid of.

True. OTOH, it looks like the new management will block the kind of moves we made in the past, bringing in useless players (well past their prime or just plain worthless) and paying them so much that it then becomes near-impossible to get rid of them. Bottom line, I am more optimistic than I have been in recent years, despite the fact that we are out of time.

Undoubtedly Juventus is a shrewdly managed team. But that's also the reason the fail to capitalize in Europe so often. They value marketing and the Serie A apparently much more. It's a club that had Zidane but failed to make a true impact in Europe with him. They usually sell their (non-Italian) marquee players for unthinkable sums, yet fail to excel and always satisfy with picking up the cream from Serie A and dominating Italian football.

At this stage, I agree that a couple of good additions will go a lot further than multiple average players. Will not fix all of our problems, but it should make us a little more competitive, perhaps good enough to get to Europa.

However, sadly we are still linked with Zaza. In my mind, Zaza is gonna be forever associated to this. He was brought in to do one job, and ...

True. OTOH, right now I would rather be Juve than Milan.

You can say in this case that Juve are a well run business because no other truly elite side would sell their best player. no matter the money. Do you see Real selling Ronaldo/Modric/Kroos/etc while they're in their prime? Never. Same thing with Barca, Bayern, etc.

Juve losing their best player to a team that's not even in the CL for me speaks volumes in terms of their ambitions and Serie A in general.

Yes they made other big signing, but as you mentioned, they pick off the league's best players and sell their biggest stars outside of it. That's their MO, it's always been their MO and it's why they'll never be a huge brand outside of Italy.

As for Allegri, he still has the undisputed best team in the league, he's in an even better position than he probably ever really was, aside from his Scudetto season with us. There's no real competition for the league, his team greatly weakened his direct competitors. But I'm thinking they'll struggle in the CL this year


Yep, no way Galliani will be allowed to do what he wants as he was allowed to in the past, he has people to answer to now, and most outlets seem pretty sure that he won't last at Milan past the closing of the sale to the Chinese. Any move he makes will have to get a seal of approval from people other than Berlu now. The days of satisfying Genoa and his agent buddies are over.


Agreed. Plus I feel that in this case the business aspect of running the club was considered more than the footballing one, which imo will hurt the team in the long run


Yep. At this point, if we really do have a very limited budget, I'd rather things stay as they are and we make proper signings when the cash influx comes in rather than making a couple of panic buys, who might be slight improvements over the current crop we have (Badelj for example is better than all our current mids, but he'd only be a slight improvement) but won't really add much to the team as a whole. I hope Galliani is not allowed to continue with his long standing philosophy of quantity over quality

I've been researching our new signing. Gustavo Gomez and I'm really hearing great things. A lot of fans from S.America saying we made a steal. He's been core to the league winning side in Argentina and is supposedly quite physical without being tactically foolish.

I'm quite curious to see him play.

I'm not sold on Cuadrado. I find him to be a very inconsistent player tending to drift out of games too often to my liking but we don't have a player like him in our roster so I can't say I'm against it. We now mostly lack quality in the centre midfield area. Too many tractors, not enough artists.

I really don't view Pogba as a big star and an integral part of this Juventus side. As I said, he is massively overrated and never performs in the big games. Undoubtedly he's a very good player and has room for improvement, but for 110 million I wouldn't think twice about selling him. Juve have made a fantastic move in this regard, I will never stop stressing this enough.

It's like you speak to yourself. Everyone acknowledged this fantastic move. But we're talking also about the footballing side. You failed to answer what Matuidi achieved that would make him so great. Also, can you give us some examples of Pogba not performing in big games?

Milan (along with Inter and Roma) linked now with Nasri. He sure is more capable then our current creators. That being said, he proved to be rather difficult to work with, so I'd rather find someone new.

Yeah, I've read good things as well, also watched a couple of vids on youtube, He seems to be fairly quick, good on the ball, pretty good tackler and from the very limited opinion I could form by watching a compilation (which I admit could be very misleading) he seems to be a good reader of the game considering the amount of times he bailed his teammates out. I guess we'll see, but I'm convinced that he can't be any worse than Zapata, Ely or even Paletta. I honestly don't know why we renewed Zapata's contract he's been terrible for a long while now. And Paletta seems to be wanted by Atalanta, we should cash in if there's an opportunity


But in retro-spect you think that Higuain was a good singing? You admit that he's not worth what Juve paid for him. I personally think Juve took 2 steps backwards with this. It won't really effect them domestically but I think we'll see the result of this move in the CL




Honestly, I'd rather try to make an offer to Barca for Turan. He seems surplus there, and I think he'd be a great add for Montella to play a 4-2-3-1.

Also re: Cuadrado, I agree Jack, I don't think he's all that, but he did play some of his best football under Montella.

I'd personally rather we strengthened the core of the team .i.e get 2 creative mids in and 1 other CB. The wings and attack could be improved on later.

You said about Pogba that "he has immense physical capabilities, he is skilled and has great technique and intelligence. He's played a Euro final, a CL final, won tons of Italian trophies". I could say the very same thing about Matiudi. So, my question still stands: what has Pogba achieved more to be considered the better player? A CL final? Is that all it takes to make a difference?

And you want me to give examples of Pogba choking in big games? Hon, he's choked in all of them. Remind me one crucial Juventus game where Pogba was MVP. Cos I sure as hell can't remember. I only remember Pogba being an absolute nobody whenever it counted. Same with France. Completely choked in the final.



Because as I've said a million times by now, Higuain is exactly what Juventus needed, and he's worth that amount way more than Pogba is worth the amount he's being sold for. Sure, nobody is worth 94 million or 110 million for that matter. As Rio Ferdinand stated today, no football player is worth more than 20 million. But at least Higuain as proven himself to be a goalscoring machine again and again, whereas Pogba has proven ABSOLUTELY NOTHING at this point in his career.

Maybe the difference is that Pogba has 23 and he started his career with a CL final, a Euro final and some Italian silverware, whereas Matuidi is at the end of his career? Also, Pogba is IMO much better in the attacking phase. But you've dodged again answering my question. I repeat once and for all: what makes Matuidi better according to your standards?

Let's take a closer look: Pogba played 41 games last season in Serie A and CL, scored 9 + 14 assists. Matuidi at the same time played 26, scored 4 + 8 assists. The season before Pogba had 34 matches, 9 goals and 5 assists. Our friend Matuidi? Played 35, with 5 goals and 3 assists. Maybe an off season? Let's take a look at the 13/14 season: 39 matches, 7 goals and 8 assists. What about Matuidi? 35 matches, 4 goals and 5 assists.

People used to talk about Ronaldo the very same thing. And various players as well. Take the Coppa final: Pogba was very good. Take the CL final where he played even if he was injured and still managed a good performance. But okay, here we clearly disagree.



You honestly think that all Juventus needs to excel in Europe is a poacher alla Higuain? Really? So we'll see. According to you they should thrive with the likes of Pjanić (who's btw perhaps the biggest choker I've seen) and Higuain. I'll take you by your word.

I appreciate your effort to stack up all those stats, but you make it seem like Pogba's numbers are much higher. It's no wonder that Pogba has higher scoring/assist stats than Matuidi considering he's a more offensive player. That doesn't necessarily make him the better player, though.

To answer your question, I think Matuidi is better because every time I've seen him play in Europe he's impressed me way more than Pogba. He might not be the better player to someone else, say, yourself, but if Juve sell Pogba and sign Matuidi to replace him, they're not losing much in my honest opinion.



Um, no, he did not. He was subpar in the CL final. He's been subpar in every single big match. And this is a 110 million player we're talking about. I take into consideration that he might overcome this issue eventually, but that's questionable.



Higuain, a poacher? Sorry pal, but I can't reply to that if you believe Higuain to be just a poacher.

So, what's you prediction then? Juventus are according to you already stronger then the last two seasons, they made a important step forward, yes? What's then you prediction for them this season? Semifinal? Finalist? Winner?

Oh, and you make Higuain and Pogba sound like we're talking about Ronaldo and Badelj

According to MN Bacca will give his final answer to West Ham shortly (today/tomorrow). If we sell him, we're gonna go after Pavoletti

I cant believe this, with the new owners I thought that if we sell a good player we will buy a better one. If we sell Bacca I would rather invest that money in midfield or defense.

Well nothing is gonna happen momentarily. Hopefully it's just the Italian medias not having a clue about our targets.

Oğuzhan Özyakup is the alternative of Badelj according to TuttoSport.

Celta Vigo have offered €6-7m for Suso, Milan won't sell him for less than €10m. The money would go for Cuadrado, but without the arrival of Cuadrado, Suso is considered absolutely unsellable. #GdS

Sky: Montella wants a midfielder and a winger, the objectives are Badelj and Cuadrado. The first alternative of Badelj is Sosa who is waiting for Milan, and Besiktas want €8-9m. The agent of Cuadrado is working to force the sale of Cuadrado, if Milan are not able to sign him then the alternative is Januzaj. Waiting for Bacca, who has still not gave his okay to West Ham to formalize his move. His sale would unblock the mercato of Milan.

John Stones has signed with Man City for 50m Euros, while we sold Thiago Silva for 40m, SMH.

But that was years ago. EPL prizes never stop amaze me though.

Can't say for sure. You can't make such predictions because it all depends on who you face in the KO stages. All I can say for now is that after Barça, Madrid and Bayern, Juventus have the best team in Europe (supposing they replace Pogba with someone decent).



As Filipo said, it's still too early. The deal hasn't even been finalized yet, and whatever signings we'll make now won't fall on the new management.

That being said, selling Bacca to sign Badelj and frigging Pavoletti is completely illogical. Why even go after someone like Pavoletti when we signed Lapadulla for 9 million only a few weeks ago?



Indeed. Silva's transfer fee was a world record for a defender, but records are meant to be broken. And we live in a day and age where transfer fees are reaching ridiculous levels, especially in the EPL.

ManCity have spent 191 million this summer on John Stones, Leroy Sanè, Gabriel Jesus, Ilkay Gundogan, Nolito, Marlos Moreno e Oleksandr Zinchenko.

That is absolutely insane. Aside from Gundogan (who wasn't actually paid that much) the rest are a bunch of nobodies. Money is truly like toilet paper in England.

Nah, they're just making the obvious link because he's a Genoa player.

Plus Galliani is no longer allowed to do as he pleases so I'm expecting these types of moves to not happen anymore


It's the 9th of August, we barely have 3 weeks left to make any moves this summer, and it's looking likely that we're going into next season with the same group that finished 7th last season. Which is a whole lotta scary

That being said, I'd rather we stay as is than make a stupid panic buy that we're stuck with for the next 4 years


Actually, transfer sums were already ridiculous then, and let's not forget that Galliani gave them a 2 for 1 special and served Ibra on a platter to PSG for peanuts. We got 60m for both players, when PSG paid 50m just 2 seasons later for Luiz... Honestly, this deal still makes me furious years later because those 2 were worth double, if not more than that at the time.

Don't know where to post this, so I picked this topic.

Anyone watched the Trofeo TIM? A really good litmus test that hopefully clears a few things. I see the Italian papers blame Lopez, but he was solid IMO. MDS should be played on the left, and I was glad to see him play as team captain. He should be our pick this season. Suso, Niang and Adriano were good. This Adriano fellow is perplexing to me; don't know whether I should give him a chance or not. Peculiar player.

Verghara and Paletta (who would have known...) are a disaster. Both should be transferred to Serie B clubs in no time.

I didn't even know it was on today.

Anyway, it's pretty shameful to concede 3 goals to Sassuolo in 30 minutes, especially if you're up 2-0.