Last I heard we're offering him 2.8m plus bonuses, he's demanding at least 3.5m fixed.

Romagnoli is a good defender when it comes positioning, intercepting, headers etc. It's on 1v1's that he lacks the most because he's simply too slow. He's kind of like De Vrij for Inter.

I think 3.5m is fair. It's not an insane demand. I know the management seem set on bringing in Botman. But Romagnoli is a very good defender who strengthens our squad.

Yes he struggles against fast players, but unless you have the positioning of Maldini or Nesta, slow defenders tend to struggle against fast players

With Kalulu improving game by game. I think CB should be 4th on the list of imperative positions to strengthen. AM, RW, DM will have to be the first priorities imo. Not to mention we need to get a striker who's a long terms solution. We should just go with 60m to Lille and get David and Sanches rather than Botman

Jonathan David? Is he any good?

Anyway, if you told me to set aside the CB position in order to invest in a RW and CF, I'd be all for it. We saw today that against the strongest side in the league Kalulu and Romagnoli did fairly well, and they're both second choices to Tomori and Kjaer.

I think the CF and RW positions in particular are in dire need of replacements. Zlatan at the end of the season needs to say goodbye. With a top CF, Giroud and the new kid Lazetic I think we'd be fine. And of course a RW as we saw today (and throughout the whole season) Saelemaekers and Messias are too mediocre.

By the way, did anyone read Inzaghi's post-match comments? Whining about the "foul" on Sanchez before our first goal. STFU you sore loser! Not only that wasn't a foul (the ref let many identical situations flow throughout the match), but it was in the midfield circle. You think VAR is going to intervene for that? What an idiot.

Instead he should reflect upon his terrible choices, as soon as he took off Lautaro, Perisic and Calhanoglu his team crumbled apart. And it's not the first time he does it. Same thing happened vs Lazio and Juve.

He's great. Quick, mobile, good finisher. Exactly what we need to take our attack to the next level

RW, AM, CF are extremely important for next season but with Kessie leaving that means needing to fill a midfield position, which would have to make it first priority

Not extending Romagnoli just created another unnecessary headache imo. Exactly as we did with Hakan

As for RW. What do you guys think of pulling a Marotta and offering Perisic a good deal to bring him in for that position? He'd be perfect for us on that right side as he brings in all the qualities we need. Similar to Alexis but obviously a huge jump in quality.

I'd personally allot what we're offering Kessie to him.

That would be one huge hole filled for zero. Not to mention we've really saved up on salaries these past 3 seasons, even with the higher renewals now almost complete for Theo, Bennacer and Leao, we're still saving money considering what we paid Donna, Hakan, Kessie, Conti and potentially Zlatan's salary off the books as well

As for Zlatan, I still think he's a hugely important figure within the team, but he cannot be the starter anymore. And he cannot be our highest earner anymore either. For a highly reduced salary, I'd still give him another year.

Messias and Baka should be sent back once their loans are up. only loanee I'd redeem atm would be Florenzi. Brahim we have another season after this to assess.


Too funny. Giroud clearly got the ball. Sanchez is a small guy so obviously the challenge looks worse than it actually is. Brahim gets bodied like that all game, a foul is rarely called. Limone is such a whiney little b!tch

As I've been saying all season. Take out 3 important players from Inter's side and let's see how they deal with it.

Inzaghi makes terrible in-game decisions, that was the case when he was at Lazio as well

Don't think Perisic is even on the cards, and as much as I think he's a great wingback, for the the RW position we need something else. My dream is Antony of Ajax. Price tag at around 30-35m. If I could direct the funds from Botman to somebody else, it'd be him.

Don't know if that fee is realistic though

In January every source was starting that amount when he was being linked with Barca and Liverpool, now it seems the new price tag is 60m.

Can't blame Ajax, though. They'd be stupid not to overprice their talents when you've got clubs who would spend 60m like they're going to the grocery store.

Still feeling the high today

Zlatan shouldn't be available for 2-3 weeks, apparently. But Rebic started training with the rest of the team today, so he should be considered recovered.

I want to see Rebic as CF again like at the start of the season when we played some of our best football. Or at least as RW.

Seems to me that Juve are now scudetto challengers.

Because they beat Verona?

Nah, just because of the team they have now with Vlaho. He seemed to be the missing piece there. The midfield is still not overly impressive though.

Juve's problems go beyond just a good striker. I'm still unsure whether they will make top 4, but Atalanta has been rubbish lately so that could help them big time.

Also, this weekend:

Napoli-Inter
Juventus-Atalanta

This is the problem with these "reports" No one really knows anything concrete. With the numbers going around atm and the fact that Ajax never sell low. I never really believed those kind of numbers


Rebic probably won't start the Lazio game. But hopefully we can start him against Samp. That was really our best spell and when Diaz excelled. I was listening to a pod recently and they talked about Diaz and how he came through systems/academies where he didn't really play with a CF like Giroud/Zlatan and this could explain why he excelled so much at the start of the season with Rebic ahead of him, compared to how he's played when behind either of those 2. I think this argument has a lot of merit. Obviously Covid didn't help and he's seemingly only now shaking it off.


Was going to respond to your first post about Juve but you answered yourself here. Their midfield is still absolute sh!t. A striker without service will struggle. Verona were missing important players and played a very open game against them Juve generally struggle when they have to take the impetus in the game and attack

Personally very worried about this weekend.

Samp blew Sassuolo out of the water and Giampaolo has seemingly settled back in well over there. I really hope we don't pull off our usual BS after all the work we put in on Saturday and lose points against Samp

That would be so typical of us.

I hope Napoli beat Inter next weekend and we can capitalize on that. We have a good run of games coming up where we should take most of the points up for grabs (Napoli game in between)

Inter have a much more complicated schedule coming up and Napoli as well. This is where we have to take advantage.

I'm not worried. The derby win should have given to the players that extra boost in confidence they were perhaps lacking recently. It propelled us again in the scudetto race, and without European competitions to keep us busy that's all we have (Coppa aside). This is the moment to make a difference.

Good first half vs Lazio.

Excellent game overall.

Maybe my worry was misplaced. But we do tend to flip flop at times even after great results.


I'll only relax once we show the same display against Samp on Sunday. Because that's essentially a 6 pointer with all the other top 5 sides playing each other. Both for the Scudetto and top 4 imo


Some key points

Brahim. Once again, excellent display and not just in the attacking phase. He's been on an upward trajectory since that Juve game. So glad to see him getting back in form after a difficult few months after covid. He's really critical to our attacking play. His driving runs makes opposition sides scramble, especially with Leao and Theo always making runs, makes defending against us extremely hard.

Leao. He struggled against both Inter and Juve because they crowded him and he was our sole attacking threat. But 90% of the teams really cannot handle him at this point. As I said the other week, he's turning into a cheat code for us at this point.

Kessie. Utter garbage display. His head isn't at this club anymore and Pioli needs to stop relying on him. Simple as that. Use him just to keep Tonali and Benna fresh like today, but otherwise, he needs to be done at this club. Donna's comments today made me snigger, we should do the same to him. Just take the offer off the table and secure a replacement early.

Romagnoli. He deserves the renewal imo. However apparently Botman's agent was at the stadium today... Honestly, I'd rather put the 30m somewhere else when we already have 4 very good CBs in the side (Kalulu now included in that list).

Just wanted to add, this season, despite all the difficulties with injuries and covid, the only big game we lost was to Napoli, and we were basically robbed of the draw there.

I mean, we complain endlessly here when we're struggling especially. But we have to appreciate what this team has achieved so far. And I know that when the squad is fit and we have our best 11 out there, we play really good football that also brings in results.

Pioli sometimes makes me scratch my head. But he's really gone above an beyond what is expected. The fact we're still in the title race after so many injuries and basically fielding the most different starting line-up combinations in the league (by a wide margin) because of said injuries, is a testament to the work Pioli's done with this group

And maybe we don't have enough to really cross that finish line this season. But I really do hope the management back him strongly this summer. He deserves it

Agreed. It may sound like we're criticising him because of the renewal issue, but it's not that. I was paying close attention to him tonight, the guy's usefulness is nonexistent. Just a jogging red and black shirt on the pitch. Comapre that to when Bennacer came on, he was pressing the opposition like a madman the entire time. And he's supposed to be the playmaker whereas Kessie the ball winner.

Pioli proved Mourinho's scrambled eggs statement incorrect. He literally took this team from being a regular EC team to a CL capable team (by capable, I am not referring to them winning it, but rather competing in it).

Pioli is a coach with no trophies to his name, his greatest achievement was being named manager of the month in 2021. Still, he has moulded this squad into a credible team. The showing last night was something spectacular, I was very entertained.

I believe the management will stick by him and further bolster the squad. That said, I was rather impressed in Romagnioli during the past stretch of games ... Think the club should give him an offer, if anything, for sticking around at Milan during the most turbulent of times. Botman is a quality CB, and I say quality because it is Maldini who is recruiting. But maybe save up on that allocated budget and invest in an AM/RW. (Disclaimer, Raiola is not someone Milan should be dealing with)

P.S. What was Dollarumma doing talking about Milan? In my books, I believe we have a much better GKeeper in Maignan, the confidence he instils in the backline coupled with his superiority in the area. Milan is a project that is starting to take shape in a very serious manner and the players that should stay on or come in are ones who believe in it. To that extent Maignan is definitely an upgrade in that context and more.

Really hope Pioli goes with Bennacer-Tonali in the double pivot against Samp.

Kessie is done as far as I'm concerned


He was basically saying there are 2 sides to every story. It's obvious he's still trying to ingratiate himself because he feels like he can't go to Milan at this point without being pelted by tomatoes. But the audacity to say such BS after stringing the club along and costing us a big transfer sum on top of it all just speaks to his lack of intelligence. Th kid might be extremely talented but he strikes me as being rather dumb

Donnarumma is simply making a fool of himself at this point. The whole world is watching and I'm enjoying it. Serve the prick right.

Sky Italia saying that Bennacer Tonali will be the starting duo against Samp.

Finally! Let's just discard with this guy. Ungrateful PoS.

Yeah, but every other source has Kessie instead of Bennacer. And Sky aren't very reliable wrt probable line-ups.

Pff

Anyway. Inter Napoli ended in a draw

Let's not f@ck this up and we go top of the table tomorrow

Kind of dreading the idea of fucking up tomorrow though. I'm torn between us caving when it matters and this being different after the derby push.

Same

Just really nervous about tomorrow and want to see us make that leap. Because one we get this done it's a clear shot for full points until the Napoli game

Tomorrow is just as big as the derby imo

And it would be soo us to f it up

The Lazio game gave me hope, but the PTSD this club has given me in recent years won't allow me to relax until the game is over tomorrow

I have to wake up tomorrow at 6:30 am to watch the match. We better not f it up. Honestly, I feel really good about the team at the moment so idk

Where do you live?

Looks like Pioli is finally using his brain. Bennacer starting, Kessie on the bench.

Excellent vision by maignan amd and leao is very good in these situations

We're kind of playing with the handbrake on.

We cannot afford to get leao injured

They keep falling down every now and then such a slow pace game

Very slow pace game.

Mediocre first half. I'm getting Milan-Sassuolo vibes, only difference is that Samp are shite. We should be going gung-ho in these games, and not like we're playing the next summer friendly FFS. The players don't look fierce at all. The fiercest player has been Messias who's usually the most quiet one.

Feel's like everyoe is walking out there

The 1-0 is worrying. Should push for that 2nd to kill this off. Or we're just asking for trouble

How has Sensi not gotten a yellow btw?? Studs up on Tomori and a bad foul on Leao. Looks like he's still got that Inter plot armor protecting him

Rebic needs to come on. We need that drive he brings

We have one week to prepare the next match after this one, so it's not like we have to save energies or anything. Boh...

Wtf are we doing??

Everyone standing still basically

No one wanting to run.

lol how is that a foul??

This ref has been incredibly annoying with all the soft fouls

F the ref man everytime he gives a foul

Rebic is so frustrating to watch nowadays.

Falcone has been instrumental for Samp to hold off Milan from scoring the second, Im rather impressed. Otherwise Milan should be up by at least 3.

Still out of form

That being said, everyone has been sh!t in front of goal today

Yeah, but Rebic misplaces evereything. Passes, shots, crosses, you name it.

3 points FFS

We really have to suffer even in sure-win games.

3 points very dull and boring but will take it