r/ACMilan • u/AutoModerator • 1d ago

Monday Discussion Thread

Great place for team discussion/whatever Serie A related topics you would like to bring up. Examples: Transfers, rumors, players from other teams, things you miss about the old days etc. Whatever you want as long as it isn't too off-topic.

Also a good spot to ask about the stadium, the city of Milano, bars, fan clubs in your city etc.

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u/Darthprovader1 Olivier Giroud 1d ago

If we don't retain our players we are headed straight to the banter era.

Our strategy seems to find talent and as soon as they start developing or settling in we sell them and rebuild again. Instead of building up upon that talent, specially on our midfield. We have a completely different midfield now. We could have had Reijnders still and alegate those funds to build a midfield with him on it. Modric is an insane player but at most he has 1 more soeson with us after this one. And who knows if next season we won't decide to sell players like Fofana, Sallad Pulisic or even Leao?

Heck even by going further back. We could have kept Tonali, still have Reijnders and keep building upon the team. We have the funds, we just dont use them. How many financial scuddetos will we win before we get relegated?

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u/ComradePoula Simon Kjaer 1d ago

Have you maybe considered the possibility that the guys you want to build on all asked to leave? We know for a fact that Tonali did and Reijnders is pretty much confirmed to have done the same thing.

And if anything, what got us into the banter era in the first place wasn't selling Ibra and Thiago Silva, although that definitely played a part. It was actually not rebuilding the squad in the years prior. The 11/12 squad had 14 players over the age of 30 with half of them being around 35 or older. So you ended up with half the team retiring around the same time with no direct replacements in the same level or better.

Also, I'm tired of the entire financial scudetto nonsense. If your entire argument is that the biggest spending club in Italy should spend even more money on fancier players, then you should probably look back at what got us into that mess to begin with. Redbird could go bankrupt tomorrow and nothing would happen to the club, which is crazy to say considering where we were just 7 years ago.

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u/random_civ_321 1d ago

Who is We? Milan fans? I don't know for a fact that Tonali asked to leave and I follow Milan news almost daily. All I've heard is that an offer was made and both Milan and Tonali found it acceptable.

The narrative can also be presented also that Milan asked him to leave... Heck rumours at the time were that Tonali cried when he was signing the new contract, and looked anything but happy when he was transferring to Newcastle. Him saying that it had to be done after the tranfer, and pushing to leave are two different things. And yes, we all know he was pissed after Maldini got fired. Completely different story for Rejnders.

Unless you have a source saying that Tonali pushed to join Newcastle, I'd call your statement unfounded.

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u/ComradePoula Simon Kjaer 1d ago

I don't know. His fucking agent? The Athletic's report on the whole situation? Pretty much every single reputable source has said that Newcastle agreed a deal with Tonali before they had even approached us.

If you genuinely believe that poor Tonali was crying because the evil Americans forced him to leave, I genuinely don't know what to tell you.

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u/random_civ_321 1d ago

Again, "pushing to leave" and "accepting offer" are two different things. Did Nesta accept to leave Lazio for Milan? Yes. Did Nesta push to leave Lazio? Hell no!!!

You appear to feel very strongly about this conversation, so I'm not sure if I'm wasting time writing this, but I'm willing to try and explain my point again since in your prior posts that I've read your thoughts are rational.

From NY Times / Athletic

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/4655468/2023/07/03/inside-sandro-tonali-newcastle-transfer/

So what happened? In the week beginning June 12, Milan officials were in London for a routine intelligence-gathering mission to plan their approach for the transfer window. Chelsea had spoken to them about Tonali around the time of the Champions League semi-finals and had come armed with a list of three of their players to offer as collateral; Milan thought they may still be interested. Liverpool, it is understood, were also monitoring him. (for context, Maldini was sacked in June 6)....

On Tuesday June 20, Newcastle submitted an opening offer of €50million (£43m, $54.5m). By Wednesday, Ashworth and Nickson were holding face-to-face talks in Milan at the Palazzo Parigi Hotel, with the player’s representative Giuseppe Riso...

https://www.themag.co.uk/2023/06/milan-media-now-resigned-to-sandro-tonoli-departure-to-newcastle-united-this-sums-it-up/

The mood perhaps best summed up by Carlo Pellegatti, a lifelong fan and a journalist / broadcaster / commentator who has covered AC Milan for the past forty years.

He says he has discovered that Newcastle United first approached AC Milan back in May and that the deal has now ‘evolved’ tyo the point where the move appears certain...

I'm not going to try and convince you that Tonali is the naive defender and that the Milan management is the bad calculating wolf, that would be very hard to do without explicit tangible proof. What I'm trying to make you consider is something far less evil, that Milan management was already considering selling Tonali, and that Tonali (or his agent) were aware of that.

As a parting thought, I'll leave this question to you: Do you think that Milan would have sold Tonali that summer if Maldini was not sacked?

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u/ComradePoula Simon Kjaer 1d ago

So, let's rationalize this. Milan's position has always been the same; no player is untouchable. If the offer matches what we want, it's up to the player to decide.

Newcastle acted quicker. A deal with Tonali was already pretty much in place before they went to negotiate with Milan and the Serie A club

Directly from Athletic article.

Even in the article you linked they say this

Opportunity knocked for Newcastle; the word on the grapevine was if they could convince the player first then there was a possibility of persuading AC Milan into a deal. “Things changed, so we moved accordingly,”
Green light given — the deal was driven by Ashworth, Nickson and Andy Howe, in conjunction with Newcastle’s head coach — there could be no leaks; coming so soon after the sacking of technical director Paolo Maldini, a club legend, selling Tonali was particularly sensitive for Milan, while Newcastle were desperate to avoid an auction.
The Athletic was told by authoritative sources there were no substantive talks with Inter about Barella and no agent was mandated by Newcastle to speak to them. It was, however, a convenient smokescreen.

With public attention trained on Barella, Newcastle moved quickly and under the radar; a lack of rumour meant a lack of pressure on Milan. A little to their surprise, given his lifelong association with the club — “born a Milanista, the son of a Milanista father who took him to the curva as a child,” as Gazzetta put it — their enquiries suggested Tonali had a genuine enthusiasm about moving to the Premier League and taking on the challenge of turning Newcastle into trophy-winners.

So what we know is that they did contact Tonali first, and he agreed to the move before they even contacted us. They then finalized the negotiations with his agent and with Milan in the following days.

I don't really care whether or not Maldini would have sold him, that's not my problem. This is a grown ass adult that didn't keep his word the moment someone threw him the bag. And yeah, him agreeing to leave before there was any contacts with us is pretty much the same as wanting to leave. We just don't hold people hostage over transfer fees.

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u/random_civ_321 1d ago

him agreeing to leave before there was any contacts with us

I just showed you that was not the case, with quotes from articles, both Newcastle had approached us, and Milan management was including him in sale talks. This was from NY Times/Athletic and quotes from Pellegati. Can we please agree on that. It wasn't 'Oh no, Tonali wants to leave, what are we going to do', it was 'Oh yes, Tonali also wants to leave, we won't have another PR nightmare when we sell him'

I read your quote, as part of the article, but gave me a different point of view from yours. The way I understood it, is that they knew that if they were able to convince Tonali of a potential move, then the rest would be smooth sailing, and that snippet was following exactly my first quote that showed that Milan management was open to selling him a week prior to that. We'd have to agree to disagree if you still genuinely believe that was not the case.

If a grown adult finds out that his club is talking of selling him to other clubs, how do you think he'd react, especially after they sacked one of his idols (Maldini) which for some of the players, including Tonali, was unjustified. It's like having a big fight with your partner, and then a few days later finding out that he/she has opened a Tinder account. i don't care what loyalty claims you've made up to that point as a grown adult, you accept that it's time to move on and rip the bandaid off.

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u/Sankaritarina Romagnoli 1d ago

Also, I'm tired of the entire financial scudetto nonsense. If your entire argument is that the biggest spending club in Italy should spend even more money on fancier players, then you should probably look back at what got us into that mess to begin with.

You are arguing about different kinds of spending. As you pointed out, we are the highest spenders in Italy but only when it comes to transfer money. However, we are nowhere near the highest spenders in Serie A when it comes to wages which is often a better indicator of the club's ability and willingness to build a winning team.

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u/ComradePoula Simon Kjaer 1d ago

Why exactly would you want to spend even more money on wages? For every transfer that works out, you have guys like Origi, Florenzi or even Bennacer on massive wages that make it impossible to get rid of them.

The main reason a team like Chelsea hasn't gone bankrupt yet is that they don't spend that much on wages. Even a club like PSG have moved into performance-based contracts and have been cutting their wage bill in the last few years, which is why they ended up selling Dollarumma. Hell, Vlahovic, who's a really good striker, has been holding Juve hostage for two years because of his wages.

Our wage bill isn't a problem no matter how you look at it. And until we have our own stadium, it doesn't make sense to give away massive wages and get into debt because some people can't move on from the sugar daddy era.

You either spend no money on transfers and put everything into signing free agents, and we've seen how well that can work with Inter's old squad. Or you spend reasonably on wages and put your money into transfers. And the second option makes far more sense for a club in our position.

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u/Sankaritarina Romagnoli 1d ago

Why exactly would you want to spend even more money on wages? For every transfer that works out, you have guys like Origi, Florenzi or even Bennacer on massive wages that make it impossible to get rid of them.

I mean by that logic why even spend money at all, there's always a risk of something going wrong. The whole idea behind wanting to spend more is believing that the management (at least now with the addition of Tare and Allegri's input) is capable of finding players who can take us to the next level.

The main reason a team like Chelsea hasn't gone bankrupt yet is that they don't spend that much on wages. Even a club like PSG have moved into performance-based contracts and have been cutting their wage bill in the last few years, which is why they ended up selling Dollarumma. Hell, Vlahovic, who's a really good striker, has been holding Juve hostage for two years because of his wages.

PSG still have some of the highest wages in world football. Every single elite team does.

Our wage bill isn't a problem no matter how you look at it. And until we have our own stadium, it doesn't make sense to give away massive wages and get into debt because some people can't move on from the sugar daddy era.

Given that we have been consistently outperformed by our cousins that spend less on transfers and more on wages, I think this is a ridiculous statement to make. Nobody is advocating that we start offering Real Madrid level contracts so there is no need to fearmonger about our wage bill going out of control.

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u/ComradePoula Simon Kjaer 1d ago

there's always a risk of something going wrong.

And the risk is far lower if the players you sign are on lower wages. It's that simple. A player that costs €40m but makes €3m in wages isn't as big of a risk as someone that costs €15m but is on €6m in wages. Why do you think someone like De Ketelaere wasn't a problem for us while we have desperately been trying to get rid of Origi for years now?

PSG still have some of the highest wages in world football.

And it's much lower now than it was years ago. Does that look like it's going up to you?

Given that we have been consistently outperformed by our cousins that spend less of transfers and more on wages, I think this is a ridiculous statement to make.

And what has that exactly led to now? It's a viable strategy in the short term, but once you reach the end point of that project, you're pretty much fucked. The same way we were in 2012. Inter are quite lucky that their team overperformed massively compared to our teams in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and you can't always bank on overperformance if you're trying to build the future of a club.

If you start handing out bigger contracts, it will either get out of control at some point or leave you with a lot of underperforming players on massive wages. That's what always happened and that's what will always happen.

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u/Sankaritarina Romagnoli 1d ago

And the risk is far lower if the players you sign are on lower wages. It's that simple. A player that costs €40m but makes €3m in wages isn't as big of a risk as someone that costs €15m but is on €6m in wages. Why do you think someone like De Ketelaere wasn't a problem for us while we have desperately been trying to get rid of Origi for years now?

Of course it was a problem but that's football, some risks turn out good while others do not. My goal as a fan isn't making sure that my club makes the lowest risk possible on the market.

And it's much lower now than it was years ago. Does that look like it's going up to you?

I am fairly sure that the accounts for the last season aren't out yet so these are likely guesses but yeah this is to be expected. PSG had 3 of the highest (over)paid footballers in Europe and they all left so of course they aren't going to hand out Neymar/Messi contract to Doue or Kvara. Again though, they will still be one of the highest spenders in the world once the reports are released.

And what has that exactly led to now? It's a viable strategy in the short term, but once you reach the end point of that project, you're pretty much fucked. The same way we were in 2012. Inter are quite lucky that their team overperformed massively compared to our teams in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and you can't always bank on overperformance if you're trying to build the future of a club.

Two CL finals and consistently beating their biggest rivals, I'd say it worked out pretty well for them. Also I've been hearing about Inter being short sighted for about half a decade now. Idk when our way of doing this is supposed to translate into results.

If you start handing out bigger contracts, it will either get out of control at some point or leave you with a lot of underperforming players on massive wages. That's what always happened and that's what will always happen.

So you have to manage your wages and understand how to properly build a wage hierarchy. Every other top team on the planet is faced with similar problems, it's a matter of having the management that can pull it off. It's incredibly difficult but managing a club of our stature isn't supposed to be easy.