Never quite sure where to start a thread so 'other' always seems best.

Just wanted to get general opinion from the board as to your feelings on our summer recruits so far - do you guys think we're in the right direction?

Personally I know little of Musacchio, but as Han says, a vital cog in Spain's second best defence last season has to be a decent recruit.

Kessie seems like the powerful box to box dynamic midfielder we've lacked in a long time - while Jack sort of fills that role, he's much more of an attacking midfielder really, so Kessie is a great piece of business.

Rodriguez is a great signing - comes from a great stable, a good age, and a massive upgrade over the garbage of De Sciglio.

Then there's Silva. Meh, I'm not blown away by his record, or his attitude. He's only young, true, but we've spent a lot of money on a player who appears combustible and who doesn't have a good scoring record in a weaker league than Serie A. I defer judgement on this one but it's not a signing I'm enthralled by.

Last but not least Borini. A sh*t signing, plain and simple. Not even good enough to be a squad player, I have no idea what he's doing here.

But I can pick it up with Calhanoglu - we appear close to this one, and from what I know of him, which is not a lot in truth, he's a top class attacking midfielder who would be such an upgrade to what we have.

Overall? I'm cautiously pleased. We've signed a lot of very good players and one or two I'm a little wary of. I wanted this done in 2011, but it's better late than never. Unfortunately rather than, as it would have been in 2011, adding fine players to a world class squad, we're rebuilding really from scratch.

But for me, it appears to be closer to going to Milan as we should be rather than in a poor direction.

7/10.

13/7/17 update:

We've now got Conti, Biglia and Bonucci. A RB, a CM, and a world class CB.

Suddenly we have a top four team. We now have a top four team. Yes. I am not going to declare a Scudetto challenge but we're much closer to one than we were a few days ago. This is now looking like a Milan level team.

Calhanoglu and Borini are not really up my ally, I'm happy with the rest and will be ecstatic once we close the Conti deal as well as he looks to be the real deal

I'm going to go ahead and give it a 6/10 so far.

But I think once we've gotten rid of all the deadwood and brought in a regista plus some other good squad players, I think it's safe to say that this will most likely be a 9/10 mercato

I am happy with all the signings. Especially with Musacchio, Rodriguez and Canhanoglu. Conti is good signing too, I think we payed too much for him, but those are not my money, so I'm glad.

As for Kessie and Silva, I think they are young and it is more of a gamble, even though it is clear that they have much talent.

Fassone said we will have 2/3 squad ready till pre season starts, so that means that we can expect at least 2 more signings and if we sell Bacca we will sign a top striker like Belotti.

I give this mercato a 8/10 until now.

8/10 till now.

Yeah. So 7.5 from me. I think I generally like the idea that we're building from the back. I would have liked to see more progress on getting rid of the extra players though. But I imagine - Montella would like to run a few training sessions before deciding for himself who he wants to keep on, and who he wants to move on.

Hakan is a good signing, seeing as we already have Suso and Jack. Hopefully these two continue to be consistent for us going forward. Still missing one top striker and one proven mid, who could make all the difference between 4th and finishing in automatic CL qualification spots.

4th will be an automatic CL qualifying spot as well come next season

As for the players who'll be leaving, I'm sure we'll see a lot more exits in the coming few weeks

Really? I think 4th means you have to play the pre-qualification before making it to the round of 32? Like we did in 2007?

And with it being a world cup year - I think we should just look to lighten our workload as much as we can.

No, starting from next season the first four spots in Italy, Spain, England and I think Germany will qualify directly to the CL group stages. News rules from UEFA. You must have missed it.

As for this mercato, I think we should really appreciate the fact that in about a month we've signed 7 players (counting Conti as well who seems like a done deal at this point).

Musacchio, Kessie, Rodriguez, Silva, Calhanoglu and Conti are all very good signings. No-one is a world beater, but we cannot afford world beaters right now. Next season, as we make it to the CL, we can strengthen our roster even more with a couple of world class signings.

It's actually the level I was looking for. I didn't expect us to make 6 50M signings. Not gonna happen. But what I wanted was to build a team filled with high quality players from modest to high quality teams. A foundation of very good players who would reassert us in the UCL spots and then build from there and increase the ambition.

We do just need that one marquee signature though, to send out a message.

But, do you guys think that these 7 signings (counting Conti as well even though it's taking forever) are enough to guarantee us top 4? I still think we're gambling a bit, and we need that one difference maker who can come in and be an instant game changer for us

Atm we're banking a lot on things going as perfect as possible to get that CL position, if things go wrong with injuries/fixtures/team chemistry we could lose out and it will be a massive hit to the new owner's plans

Right now it's not enough for top four, but it's going in that direction.

I think you're right partly. We have to realise that unlike us, the other teams are yet to make moves in the transfer market. We don't yet know what they'll stock up on. We have to take for granted that Inter will build to challenge for CL. They can't afford not to.

So if the teams stay as they are and if the new signings play to potential then I would say we have a serious chance to make it to 4th. Of course injuries etc. are risks. But we do have a relatively young squad so we should hopefully not have injured players lay down for too long.

I think on paper with our first XI we should be able to secure 4th place. But it's gonna be a long season with more competitive matches in Europe so squad depth will also be key. If we don't make anymore signings I would like Abate, Calabria, Locatelli, Kucka, Paletta, Plizzari and Montolivo to stay. We should sell Vangioni, Sosa, Bacca, Zapata and De Sciglio.

Yes I do. If we get another class midfielder like Modric or so, I think we are good to fight for Scudetto.

Wow, you think signing one player would elevate this Milan to Juve level?!

We get Modric and we would have a team like this :



This is a Scudetto competitive team, say what you want.

It's a proven striker away from being Scudetto competitive. My stand has been one top midfielder and one top striker is needed.

If we sell Bacca then I am sure one will come. So I don't think we are that bad as Danny is making it seem.

It's a top four team for me, premature to say Scudetto. Juve strolled it last season with a UCL final. I mean I'd love you to be right of course, but for me there's just no chance.

And to answer your follow up point, at no point did I say 'bad' anything! You do also forget the part about Juve being a team of winners with a winning coach - we could sign a bunch of top class players and yet none of the above players, Modric aside, understand winning at the top levels. They all know UCL and high class football. But pushing for the title? Add Montella as well - he's never challenged for a title far less won one.

What I'm saying is give it time and don't have expectations beyond what is realistic.

What are we qualifying as 'Scudetto' competitive? Like a serious shout at overcoming Juve?

But you have to consider that we've already made 6(7) signings so far. I don't think we'll make a lot more. We know we're looking at another striker but as far as the regista goes everything is still up in the air. Plus we have to see who they'll sign for squad depth if all the players quoted to be leaving do in fact leave.

I think so far, with all the signings put in, we have a good first 11 which is still not at Napoli/Roma level, even Inter (on paper) can be considered better than us. So that's why I think there's still a few missing puzzle pieces left before I can call this a 9/10 mercato


Well you can't say how things will turn out. Juve's first season under Conte barely had any injuries, and he literally played almost the same starting 11 in each game. Luck has to factor in, add to that we have the EL next season so we need to make sure that Montella can rotate without the quality dropping too much as has been the case for a while

I don't know, I just think we're still missing 1 to 2 key signings. Don't get me wrong, all our actitivy has been good (bar Borini), but it's still a gamble imo and I still don't see us a shoe ins for top 4


I think you guys are sort of forgetting the fact that it's still very early in the window and other teams still have a lot of time left to improve their squads. I think Roma and Inter will definitely make some signings in the next few weeks. These are the 2 teams we need to watch out for as I think the battle for the final 2 CL spot will be between us and them


Nah, don't think we're there yet, Modric and a top striker and I can confidently say we'd be better than Napoli, but I still think we'd be a slight step away from Juve.


They are the gold standard atm, so that's what he must be saying, but I don't think even Modric would be enough. Add a top class striker and we'd be close, but I still think Juve would have the edge


Top CM, top striker and another top CB. I think that's what we'd need. Something I can't see us accomplishing this summer

No, I mean what qualifies as Scudetto competitive? Pushing for top four, managing to be top two? Because at one point last season we were top two.

If we sign Biglia, then we're top 4. If we sign someone better (say, Fabregas), then we're aiming for that 2nd spot.

What do you say if we sign someone like Fabregas or Modric and Belotti or Aubumayang ? Would we be fighting for 1st place ?

Scudetto competitive in my book means we are in contention for the top spot till maybe the last few weeks of the season. I don't see us doing this to be honest.

Yes, we'd be fighting for the scudetto. But that's not gonna happen. The players you mentioned are very expensive.

You just said we're one great striker away from it!

Fighting for 1st spot thoughout an entire season. Meaning, keeping pace with Juve for the duration, something which neither Napoli, nor Roma have managed to do

That's why I currently think of Serie A as a one horse race, becuase there's no one capable of challenging them for 1st


Disagree, I think we'd be in there fighting for it, but we wouldn't be shoe-ins either. Inter and Roma could still take those spots atm


We'd be fighting with Napoli for 2nd, but I still think we'd need that Thiago/Nesta level CB to truely be at Juve level, which is what fighting for 1st means

If we sell Bacca, Niang, Kucka and some other minor deals, we would have 40 million extra for transfers. Which means 70 for striker and 45-50 for midfielder. I think we have that money that is why I am insisting that we will have pretty decent team to fight for Scudetto this year.



Why buy Musacchio then ? Our defence is quite well covered.

I didn't say 2nd place would be a sure thing, but that we'd be aiming for it.

I've made a bet with a friend (Inter fan) that this season we're finishing 3rd, he says we're finishing 5th. 4th place is a stale mate.

Not talking about 2nd place either, I was talking 3rd and 4th places

For me, Juve are undisputed atm. Napoli are shoe ins for 2nd

The other 2 spots will be up for grabs between us, Inter and Roma

Let's also not discount teams like Lazio, who could have another very good season

Not exactly. I said one Modric and Zlatan away from it. I took names.

Zlatan is out of commission until January, and you'd have to assess whether he'd be as much of an impact signing as he was before the knee injury.

No doubt I'd still take him on a single leg, but you have to consider if he will be a bit limited when he returns

I upgrade my 7/10 to 9 if we get Bonucci. THAT would be our marquee signing. That is a game changer.

Agree. And I am sure that Bonucci wont be the last to come.

I'm hard pressed to remember a market that was this good. Granted, the team needed reinforcements desperately. The signings thus far have been solid (not counting the elder Donnarumma. that one bugs me) and have strengthened areas that needed it badly. I think the team could use a trequartista and a CF but I also don't think that Mirabelli and Fassone are quite done.

And then there's the Bonucci thing. If that comes off...yeah. That would be a marquee signing and serious statement of intent.

What if we get both Bonucci and Auba??

Can our fragile Milan hearts handle that kind of action after years of neglect?

No. I'll quite simply pass out and expect to wake up to Paletta and Lapadula.

Let's all pray to whatever god we believe in that this Bonucci deal gets done between today and tomorrow. Then I'd like to see us put all our efforts into signing Auba/Belotti for the rest of the summer

Trequarista? We just signed Calhanoglu.

Treqs are dead. Anyone who thinks football still uses treqs is stuck in 2009.

In the classical sense, yes. But there are still plenty out there who play the role in their own way.

Football doesn't use them any more - instead the Bonaventura is the archetype for that position now. A hard-working quick, pacy attacking midfielder-cum winger who supports the front and links play up - and most formations run with two or even three of them. I've not seen much of Calhanoglu but he seems to fit that vein too.

The Kaka or Rui Costa concept is well and truly finished.

9/10.

So....

--------------Donnarumma

Conti, Romagnoli, Bonucci, Rodriguez

----------------Biglia,

--------Jack, Kessie Calhanoglu

-------------Silva---Bacca

At the minute that's our strongest team. I can't think of anyone to pair Biglia with. Unless Musacchio is capable in DM. So otherwise it's a 4-1-3-2 right now.

Why did you put Kessie behind the strikers?

It'll definitely look like this:



Suso will be a starter and Bacca will be sold.

Oh, and can I say that line-up is definitely 2nd place worthy?

But I think we'll go for another striker. Not sure if Silva will be our main attacker.

I am more than sure that we will play 3-5-2.

Why?

1. Musachio is too good to let him in the bench.
2. Both our signings on the wings (Conti and Rodriguez) perform better as wingers rather than fullbacks.
3. 3-5-2 is working in Italy.
4. We can use Calhanoglus passing and shooting abilities, while as an attacking playmaker he doesn't need to run as much.
5. We will start selling, I think Suso will be a victim, while we replace him with Ghezzal who won't mind the bench contrary to Suso.
6. We have a strong box to box midfielder like Kessie and a proven leader as a deep lying playmaker like Biglia.
7. Bonucci is known as a very good libero.
8. Silva needs a parner in the attack, he can't play solo.
9. Montella is adaptable and has more than decent tactical knowledge.
10. Cos we don't have Berlusconi to order the coach how to play.

I've been told Kessie's a box to box midfielder not a holding midfielder.