Indeed. However, this will hardly be our defense this season. Plus the mistakes Paletta and Verghara made were - well, classic horrible mistakes.

Btw Milan linked with Rodrigo Bentancur. Anyone knows the guy?

Never heard of him. 19 years old, Uruguayan, CM, plays for Boca.

Him and Salvio from Benfica (Calciomercato) linked with Milan.

I'd be glad with this Bentancur fella. I think we should aim at bringing young and talented fresh players, and not those washed-out rejects. Sure, one Pastore or Cuadrado would do us nothing but good, but here I'd draw the line and try to sign a few talented younger guys.

Good god. Saw the goals of Milan-Sassuolo. Vergara reminds me of Onyewu.

Onyewu was Nesta compared to Vergara. He's utter awfulness.

But has anyone see Vergara's wikipedia site recently? I'm reading about his loan spells and career and all of a sudden this appears:





Link

Good one.

I read that if Bacca doesn't leave, then Montella will play Niang on the wing, with Bonaventura in midfield. Otherwise, Niang will be played as CF with Bonaventura on the left wing in attack.

How do you guys feel about it? Personally, I'm more up with the second option, but ONLY IF we sign a quality midfielder. There wouldn't be a point in selling Bacca and then simply play Kucka, Poli or whatever in midfield instead.

Yeah, Vergara is terrible. I honestly do not understand what our scouts were/are doing 99% of the time. This guy is worse than the various Viudez, Grimi, Cardacio, etc of the past. Just a total lack of co-ordination, defensive instinct and basic ball playing skills.

As for this Batencur kid we're linked to, I honestly don't know, he's not going to be an improvement on what we currently have. He might be a prospect for the future but it's a huge question mark. We need sure things atm if we want to at least make it into the European spots next season

Honestly, I'd prefer to keep Bacca and sign a quality midfielder.

Niang is getting better, but he's nowhere near reliable at the moment.

Bacca will most likely stay. West Ham were the only truly interested club and he didn't seem keen on joining them.

Niang still has issues with his finishing, don't think he'd be a reliable option as the main CF

Agreed. Niang is certainly not adequate to be our starting CF.

If things stay as they are, something I'm hoping won't happen but it's looking likely at this point. I'd say Montella will go for



Which is sad since that's basically the same team as last season with only a couple of minute changes. And that team finished 7th...

Paletta for Alex/Mexes is a substantial change for the worse if you ask me.

Yep, was never a fan. Our only other options are Zapata and Gomez... We basically don't know anything about Gomez and I don't trust Zapata as far as I could throw him

Maybe Gomez will surprise us and earn his way into the side, but as of now, Paletta is the only option

Seems like signing Mangala could happen.

Hmm, not sure, if an opportunity to get him on loan with an option to buy it would be great, but I don't think City will hand him off on the cheap

On another note, sky and GdS seem keen on playing out the melo-drama re this Bentancur business saying Juve are trying to hijack the deal by offering Boca 10m and loaning the player back for next season. (They have an option on him through the Tevez deal)

Meanwhile this Pasquale Campopiano person seems to be sure that it's a done deal with Milan for 12m + 3m bonuses and only pending medicals

I honestly don't know how to feel about this. If he'll turn out great than it's all well and good, but he's a big question mark, not to mention that at this moment in time we need someone who can make an immediate difference. I had such high hopes for us trying to go after Kovacic but it seems that door is closed now with Real wanting to hold onto him

Man, he's a question mark but we gotta sign these kinds of players. Kovačić is easily an improvement, but you overrate him. He'd do good, but in order to get back on top we need a combination of proven asset-players and young talents.

Kovacic is both, he's still very young with a high potential threshold but he's also experienced as he's already had experience in top leagues. This Bentancur seems like a shot in the dark. I watched a couple of youtube vids of him and it's worrying that he doesn't even look all that impressive in compilations when even I could make myself look like Ronaldo in one

All I'm saying is 15m is too much for someone who's a complete question mark. There were players like Zielinski and Parades who we could have gone after for that amount who aren't players that have only had a barely decent season in Argentina but are coming off very good seasons in Serie A. Paredes is valued at 20m by Roma, for an extra 5m I would definitely go for him ahead of this guy

Also, I would like to add that signing young players is all well and good, but we need to have more established, experienced players to build around and not just sign random young players or they'll all struggle no matter how good they are. El Shaarawy and De Sciglio are perfect examples of this. You can't thrive as a young player in an environment that is not stable and where you're immediately pushed into the deep end and asked to perform

I agree. Who do you have in mind beside Kovačić (who's also everything but established)?

I agree that Kovacic is not yet an established sure thing choice. But he'd definitely be a major and instant boost in our midfield and I stress the instant bit as I think he's a major improvement over our current lot.

That being said, in terms of established players I think we should try to go after Bastian on loan and Arda at Barca as both are deemed surplus by their clubs and would be perfect for Montella's style.

Trying to play possession football with our current lot will ensure that Montella finds himself without a job faster than Miha did

El Ghazi has been proposed to Milan but the Rossoneri have still not answered. #Sky

According to GazzaMercato, Matri to Sassuolo is a done deal. 2 year contract + option for 3rd. Tomorrow announcement.

Yesterday morning Galliani sent a new offer to Boca for Bentancur: €14m + €2m bonuses. He wants an answer until tomorrow midnight. De Sciglio, liked by Allegri and considered sacrificable by Milan, could unblock the situation. While it's unlikely that Milan will go back after Badelj, Fiorentina are not willing to sell and Galliani doesn't want to break the relations. #CorSera

#Sky: Milan are on the last details for Sosa. Today could be an important day.

Pretty sh*t news all around.

Yup, but not unexpected, given (1) how late the sale is closing and (2) the upcoming management changes. If there are any meaningful additions, most likely they will not happen until the Winter transfer market or maybe even next Summer.

At this point I personally would be happy with at least one semi-decent mid that can help Montella with his game (and it looks like we may be getting Suso). If we can survive until the Winter transfer w/o dropping too many points, we may still have a chance to end a little better than the last few years.

BREAKING: SOSA TO MILAN IS A DONE DEAL! [DiMarzio]

Was about to post that

To be completely honest I'm okay with this and prefer it to the mistake we were about to make with Bentancur.

Sosa will come for half what we were offering for Bentancur, is coming off a great season at Besiktas (I know it's not much) and I think will be a better fit under Montella, Bentancur for me seemed very underwhelming even on the supposed compilations of his best efforts, that's not good.

7.5m for Sosa is good and will hopefully leave us with a bit left over to get someone else for the midfield if we manage to sell Adriano and maybe Honda as well.

My only issue here is that Sosa is sort of similar to Bona in the position they occupy, Montella is already most likely going to be moving Bona to the midfield 3, I honestly don't think he can play both him and Sosa there or we'd be totally exposed

Also, I think this is as best as we can do atm. We're not going to see any big signings this summer.

I'd still try to go for Bastian and Caceras at this point and make the best out of the situation we're in

OFFICIAL: Sassuolo have completed the signing of Alessandro Matri from Milan.

good riddance

Milan are close to signing Sosa so they could use the other half of the budget (€7M) on a player like El Ghazi. The only team to ask for El Ghazi is Wolverhampton. Jorge Mendes has proposed El Ghazi to Milan. [Sky]

Which means no Bentacour as the only non-EU spot will be filled by Sosa. Whoop-de-fucking-do!

C'mon man, we offered him 14 million and 2 million as bonuses and Boca said no deal. Whether Juve got involved or not is immaterial. We can't pay more than that for a 19 year old S.American who is still establishing himself in his current team. Can't blame it on the club for this one.

Sosa is a pretty proven player and word is we might go for one more midfielder. So that does seem like a better deal to me.

Jose Sosa with Milan sporting director Rocco Maiorino after landing in Milan a while ago. He'll undergo his medical in the morning at 10:00 (Italy local time) [photo via Gianluca Di Marzio]. https://scontent-cdg2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0...amp;oe=5857F2E3


Milan's mercato is not over after signing Sosa. They could once again turn to Kovacic and El Ghazi. [GdS]

After landing Sosa, Milan want to sign another midfielder. Fernando(Man City) and Diawara (Bologna) are possible targets. There are no negotiations at the moment, only ideas, but Milan are expected to sign another midfielder after Jose Sosa[Sky]

What I would do if I was in charge of Milans transfer market is to sell Adriano (since we already have 3 central forwards and we are going to play only one), Honda (because we could get some money from him and he surely wont be first choice) and Poli.

If we get 7m for Adriano, 8m for Honda and 6m for Poli (even though Im sure we would have bought them for much more if we were interested in them and they were not our players), with 7 left in our budget we would have 28m left, enough to go after a decent midfielder, and play like this:

----------------Donnarumma
--Abate -- Gomez --- Romagnoli -- De Sciglio
------ Sosa -- MisterX -- Bertolacci
----Niang--------------------Bonaventura
------------------Bacca

We would still have a not so bad bench wich Paletta/Zapata/Ely, Calabria/Antonelli/Vangioni, Kucka/Montolivo/Locatelli/Mauri, Suso/Lapadula. We would have less players in attack but Niang could play in the left if necessary, also we could promote a younger just as a back up.

That's a good thing imo.

Also, apparently Boca were trying to swindle us for him. They rejected our offer of 14m + 1m bonuses + 20% of any future sale because they wanted 17m + the extra bonuses to stay on. Which is ridiculous as we could sign an already established Serie A player for that kind of money and not a complete gamble out of the Argentenian league who's far and away from setting the league on fire

Agreed.

Sosa might not be who we all wanted but he’s the smarter buy for a short term solution who can also be used as an instant fix. Bentancur was a total gamble


I 100% believe we’ll get another mid, but sadly that won’t be Kovacic. And looking at our current set of players we need a regista more than someone like Kovacic now that we’ve signed Sosa (not saying I wouldn’t be happy with Kovacic but I don’t think that’s who we’ll be going after)
Diawara is more realistic plus I think he has a lot of potential. Still think we need a proper regista though, Monto simply won’t cut it

It seems like we’ve lost all sense of business savvy. We’re handing over player who are at least worth something for free because we’re desperate to get their wages off the payroll. Matri and Menez were both worth something that could have at least boosted our nonexistent budget but we were happy to just offload them for nothing.

Also, I’d prefer Kucka over Bertolacci. Both are pretty bad but at least Kucka offers a bit of physicality in an otherwise very weak midfield.
Not sure about Gomez, I think we’ll have to wait it out a bit to see if he’s good enough to start

Yeah, the only reason I put Bertolacci right there is because I think we should give him just one more chance since we invested quite much in him and to be honest I still think that he has more potential.

As for Gomez, I put him there cos he looked decent in our last friendly and I cant just think that we might have to play Zapata or Paletta there.

Sosa is an AM. So, where will he play in Montella's 4-3-3?

He will probably play as a mezzala.

Hm, I'd rather play him as AM and switch to 4-2-3-1:



We all know that's not gonna happen, though.

PS: I hate seeing Niang as winger.

Yeah that is how I will propably play in FM 2017, but do you really think Montolivo - Bertolacci are capable of holding when we are not in possesion ?

They have the right characteristics. Whether they can do it or not depends on how much effort they put.

Montolivo can play as an attacking playmaker and deep lying playmaker while Bertolacci is a mezzala and he can play as box to box too, but none of them are defansive midfielders, not to mention ball winning midfielders like Kucka or De Jong for example.

Milan TV: "Milan are looking for a central midfielder with defensive characteristics. Rossoneri want on loan with option to buy. At the moment there are talks about Diawara, but it seems difficult that Bologna will let him, as they prefer obligation to buy."

Both Montolivo and Bertolacci made names for themselves by plaing in the double-pivot for Fiorentina and Genoa, respectively. Bertolacci more recently, as Montolivo is now approaching 32 and can't play anywhere else in midfield except for in front of the defense.

As for your argument that neither of them are defensive midfielders and ball winners, I disagree. In modern football nowadays being a ball winner is the prerequisite for every central midfielder. Gone are the days when you had one-dimensional players like Gattuso or Davids whose only jobs were to win balls and press the opponent. Bertolacci is certainly a box-to-box kind of players who can certainly pull off the duties of a DM if he puts his head into it. Same argument for Monto, although his easy-going attitude and slowness can make it a bit more difficult. You can perfectly play Kucka in there as well.

You are talking like we have not seen them play last season. I would like to think that you are right and I agree that in modern football a midfielder should know how to pass and defend in the same time, but that happens in high levels only. I know that Kucka knows how to pass, but he surely is not a play maker and I know that Montolivo is a play maker but the team can not rely on him to defend when needed. Sure Mihajlovic made him work a lot more and he progressed better when he was played before the defense but that only happened for few games.

That's why I said that it depends on how much effort they put into it. Montella is trying to force a playing style that relies on ball possession, so overcrowding the midfield with players like Kucka, Poli etc. would certainly not work well in that regard. Monto and Bertolacci, and perhaps Jose Mauri, are the closest we have to midfielders who are not completely clueless on the ball.

I think Monto is imperative in our midfield, because he's the closest we have to a playmaker, regardless of how much it pains me to say this. And Bertolacci is the closest we have to a box-to-box mid. Whether you wanna add someone like Kucka in there, Sosa, play a 2-man midfield etc. is completely up to the coach.

Agreed


I could argue that we lost our business savvy years ago .

However, in fairness, the situation right now is somewhat "complicated". You have the old management on their way out, and if they are human their motivation level is dropping, plus they are probably thinking about their "exit package" more than Milan's future. New management can't do much until they are officially "in charge", and anyway they probably need a little time to understand what is really going on and clean up the mess we are in (and that needs to happen before they worry about transfer market).

As for the wage bill, it is a real problem that needs to be resolved ASAP. Our expenses are way out of line (not just player wages), they need to be brought under control, and that needs to happen before we can really invest heavily. So deals like Matri and Menez actually make sense to me. Please keep in mind that mediocre players with high salaries are real hard to unload: teams with money are not interested, teams potentially interested don't have the money, and players are unlikely to take a salary cut when they have a good deal going if they just stay. BTW, this is why Galliani's market strategy in these last years has been inherently flawed.

Hope Milan don't get Diawara to be honest. Villa have had a €17m bid accepted. If no one else is willing to pay it, then he's got no choice.

Official: Agreement reached with Besiktas: José Ernesto Sosa is a new AC Milan player https://www.acmilan.com/en/news/first-team/...come-principito