The Rumour Commode XLI: Ragnarok

[brk]

I'm so proud of Maldini for having the balls to say 10m with a straight face.

 

[Milan10]

I want to play with 8 midfielders, Theo and Leao after what merda did to us

I know the 4231 makes me sick

 

[Ash-ish]

I know the 4231 makes me sick

I don’t particularly care about formation but outcome. 4231 is so disjoint with our personal

if I was owner I don’t care about anything except cl knockout game and if I see us outmuscled in the midfield I will shoot the coach.

Milan needs to dominate midfield no excuses I don’t care if it’s 442 like Sacchi or Xmas tree without any width. Center lane needs to be clogged

Krunic left alone who is plugging center lane there in between Tomori and Thiaw while Tonal shuttling up and down shit was Leonardo ******ed formation

 

[Milan10]

Love Openda’s highlights. He’s creative and fast… I love Giroud, but having a faster CF that can get in behind is valuable. We missed that player this entire season.

Openda + Kamada would be a really nice start.

 

[brk]

Big words are you ready to break your keyboard?

 

[Ash-ish]

We don’t want more wall of texts so please edit your original post

 

[Casualista]

I'm so proud of Maldini for having the balls to say 10m

Laughs in stefanie

 

[Milan10]

I don’t particularly care about formation but outcome. 4231 is so disjoint with our personal

if I was owner I don’t care about anything except cl knockout game and if I see us outmuscled in the midfield I will shoot the coach.

Milan needs to dominate midfield no excuses I don’t care if it’s 442 like Sacchi or Xmas tree without any width. Center lane needs to be clogged

Krunic left alone who is plugging center lane there in between Tomori and Thiaw while Tonal shuttling up and down shit was Leonardo ******** formation

We are limited by Leao to a 4231/433, which sucks.

My body is ready to return to the Christmas tree or 4312

 

[pat_m_9]

Whole forum except 2 folks want him. Berlu Fantasia

I guess it's more about working out what type of identity we want to have, and how we can target players that advance it.

The Serie A has turned into a "who can play 4-3-3 better" league, and simply having a bunch of talented guys together just won't cut it in Europe.

Would SMS complement Tonali and Ismael well? If that's the case, then having Krunic, Kamada and RLC as backup seems like a pretty strong midfield group.

 

[brk]

Laughs in stefanie

We will have the last laugh.

Spoiler:

 

[ACM14061988]

In a couple of weeks Uefa should issue the sentence against Juve for FFP violations

 

[Cloren]

In the modern game we need width and wingers so Christmas formation won’t really work as per but playing 2 midfielders is suicidal. 3 should be the bare minimum and playing a midfielder in the RW wouldn’t exactly be a bad decision, especially at least vs the big teams while playing a more offensive winger vs fodder teams in the league.

Liverpool 18/19 team is how I’d like us to emulate, perfectly balanced with proper 3 midfielders who aren’t weaklings and proper 3 attackers with 2 wingers and a false 9 who helped with build up play.

Wish we could somehow gotten Klopp lol…

 

[ACM14061988]

It's confirmed i'm sorry guys

 

[MilanBG]

Don't know about you but I expect another underwhelming mercato. Maldini's words indicate problems with RedTird. Gerry has been repeating for months that you 'don't need to invest heavily'.
We are dreaming of Openda, SMS and a proper RW, but it won't surprise me the slightest if we end up with Arnautovic, no SMS and Salad/Messias are our RWs next season.

 

[pat_m_9]

In a couple of weeks Uefa should issue the sentence against Juve for FFP violations

If I was in Juve's legal team I would absolutely go apeshit on UEFA if they give them a ban. Especially right before Manchester City are about to buy a shiny new trophy despite over 100 charges being laid against them, and copping a UEFA ban that did not stick and disappeared.

 

[Cloren]

We are limited by Leao to a 4231/433, which sucks.

My body is ready to return to the Christmas tree or 4312

4-3-3 won’t suck. It’d be perfectly balanced and we could try to emulate Liverpool’s 18/19.

But this rubbish formation of 2 midfielders and 4 attackers doesn’t cut it

 

[patosheva]

Tonali,Bena,Rade,Pobega,Kamada,Loftus,Sms for cm and am

 

[patosheva]

Don't know about you but I expect another underwhelming mercato. Maldini's words indicate problems with RedTird. Gerry has been repeating for months that you 'don't need to invest heavily'.
We are dreaming of Openda, SMS and a proper RW, but it won't surprise me the slightest if we end up with Arnautovic, no SMS and Salad/Messias are our RWs next season.

I also have that feeling.
they will buy one cf and keep diaz and play mesiass and sale as rw.

 

[taura]

Suso Shenron confirmed?

 

[pat_m_9]

Seriously though, nobody working in Milan can sit there idly and watch freaking Khvicha Kvaratskhelia come from nowhere tear the league into absolute shreds - and think that known quanitites like Alexis Saelemaekers and Junior Messias are remotely close to what we need to move forward as a football club.

These people get paid salaries to decide that ffs.

 

[Edu-bY-A]

Augello is the last name that came out for backup LB

That’s my point: Ballo-Touré >>> Augello

 

[brk]

I guess it's more about working out what type of identity we want to have, and how we can target players that advance it.

The Serie A has turned into a "who can play 4-3-3 better" league, and simply having a bunch of talented guys together just won't cut it in Europe.

Would SMS complement Tonali and Ismael well? If that's the case, then having Krunic, Kamada and RLC as backup seems like a pretty strong midfield group.

I think what we lacked last season was alternative gameplans. We went all out on the full blast 424, hoping to dominate teams with pressing and a very high center of gravity. It all fell apart when our counterpress went to shit and we lost confidence, but Pioli insisted on playing the same way right up until he was right at the edge of getting fired. He then panic switched to a defensive 352 and slowly went to a safer 4231 with a CM in the AM position in tough games. Whenever he went back to the 424 with Brahim or CDK at AM he failed again. I'll try to list the problems we've had tactically this season:

Counterpressing
The 424 depends entirely on effective counterpressing, as when teams break our press, they can run at us easily. It's a risk worth taking if it only happens rarely, but defenders (even big lumbering ones like Acerbi) simply walked around Giroud like he wasn't there. We simply can't press with both Giroud and Leao as passengers. They would just shape their buildup around our left side and easily pass through. It was a big failure this season that wasn't addressed. Kessie used to help this side with very effective coverage, and in crunch time Krunic was helping out massively in this zone. But Brahim, Leao and Giroud being the tip of the spear didn't work. Having someone up top that can hassle defenders, that can force teams to go wide (preferably to force them to go to our right side) is a huge upgrade.

Transition
We have a couple of superweapons that make us one of the best transition teams in the world. Leao, Theo, Maignan and even Brahim are ridiculously effective in quick transitions. Our end product sucks, but we can really move the ball up quickly if we have the space. That's where the problem is this season, teams stopped giving us any space at all. The few teams that did we destroyed (Napoli 4:0 as an example). Looking at all the players we're targeting, it seems like we're pushing this threat even further. RLC is perfect for a quick transition game. The reason why I was so high on De Zerbi is that he seems to have found a way to coax low block teams into creating space not by overpowering them with better technical players or physicality, but by tactically forcing them to open up. What's the point of having such a superweapon if it's so pathetically easy to counter that even Cremonese can do it twice.

Rotation
Pioli used to abuse the 5 sub rule and this was a big reason why we could maintain such intensity for the first 3 years. The subs were very routine. Wingers play 60 minutes, then sub out the AM and the CF. Basically the front four rarely play more than 65 or 70 minutes each game. Giroud this season has basically played almost every game and most of them for 90 minutes. He's 36. Leao typically plays all the time and sometimes gets subbed out at around the 80th minute. The only position where we have planned rotation is the RW. This was another factor to why our counterpress and pressing intensity has broken down this season. Injuries and lack of rotation messed up how we used our squad effectively. We had an A team and a B team and neither of them could really do what we did last season.

No Plan B
There were a few occasions where Pioli forced the 424 regardless of the opportunity or opposition. He showed an unfortunate stubbornness this season that I really didn't expect. The January madness was just crazy, to see the team fail again and again and still repeat the mistakes? He was a lot more flexible and self critical before winning the title. The 352 was an extreme reaction and he didn't even seem to believe in it himself, he just did it out of desperation. It worked against certain opposition, clearly being effective against Conte's Tottenham. Then when we had a historic opportunity against Inter, a game where we don't have Leao, what does Pioli decide? Play the 352 that was effective and doesn't need Leao and against a team that's basically still Conte? No, fuck it play 424 with Messias, Saelemaekers and Brahim behind Giroud. It was madness. Even when we had an alternative plan that worked, he refused to consider it. This wasn't just hindsight, a lot of us were worried before the game and wanted us to play like we did against Tottenham. Pioli is a professional coach and he should have made that call.

 

[Cloren]

 

[ACM14061988]

That’s my point: Ballo-Touré >>> Augello

Agree. I don't understand all the hate Ballo gets

 

[patosheva]

Seriously though, nobody working in Milan can sit there idly and watch freaking Khvicha Kvaratskhelia come from nowhere tear the league into absolute shreds - and think that known quanitites like Alexis Saelemaekers and Junior Messias are remotely close to what we need to move forward as a football club.

These people get paid salaries to decide that ffs.

Smart managment would sold leao last year for 100+ mil get kvara for 15 mil,use rest + add remaning budget and get top cf and rw

 

[brk]

Seriously though, nobody working in Milan can sit there idly and watch freaking Khvicha Kvaratskhelia come from nowhere tear the league into absolute shreds - and think that known quanitites like Alexis Saelemaekers and Junior Messias are remotely close to what we need to move forward as a football club.

These people get paid salaries to decide that ffs.

It's really disengenous to assume that anyone can make a deal like Kvara at any time. It's really a once in a decade sort of find. We just weren't lucky as we had Leao already in that position and we didn't really need to push for Kvara. He ended up with a coach that knew how to use him and a CF that fed off his scraps like a madman. The league weren't ready for him, but by the end of the season they caged him like they did Leao. He hasn't had nearly the same sort of numbers recently as in the first part of the season. For what they paid the made the signing of the season and will make 10x if they sell him. Good for them. But I would be extremely shocked if they can do it again anytime soon.

We had a similar sort of win. We got the best GK in the world for a similar sort of fee.

 

[pat_m_9]

It's really disengenous to assume that anyone can make a deal like Kvara at any time. It's really a once in a decade sort of find. We just weren't lucky as we had Leao already in that position and we didn't really need to push for Kvara. He ended up with a coach that knew how to use him and a CF that fed off his scraps like a madman. The league weren't ready for him, but by the end of the season they caged him like they did Leao. He hasn't had nearly the same sort of numbers recently as in the first part of the season. For what they paid the made the signing of the season and will make 10x if they sell him. Good for them. But I would be extremely shocked if they can do it again anytime soon.

We had a similar sort of win. We got the best GK in the world for a similar sort of fee.

Nah nah what I’m trying to say is that:

Alexis and Junior are known quantities - we know what their ceilings are and it’s safe there won’t be any major breakthrough from them anytime soon.

We can either be comfortable with that and stay extremely limited on the right side - or take a calculated stab at somebody else in the hope that we find a better solution….rinse and repeat until we hit.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[bullard]

70/6= 11.14 each

LB - Parisi - 12 mil
RW -Zhegrova - 15 mill
LW - Bamba - free
CM - Hjulmand - 15 mil
CAM - Kamada - free
ST - Nicolas Jackson - 25 mil

Total: 67m euro

Even saved 3 mil for homeless Gerry

 

[brk]

Smart managment would sold leao last year for 100+ mil get kvara for 15 mil,use rest + add remaning budget and get top cf and rw

I didn't know smart managers own their own time machine or crystal ball. Kvara is great but we're looking at his fee in hindsight. He was a risk, same way CDK was a risk. Nobody really could have expected how things turned out. If you deny this then why hasn't Napoli had a Kvara every season since 2015 when Giuntoli was hired? It took him 7 years to find a Kvara.

 

[brk]

Nah nah what I’m trying to say is that:

Alexis and Junior are known quantities - we know what their ceilings are and it’s safe there won’t be any major breakthrough from them anytime soon.

We can either be comfortable with that and stay extremely limited on the right side - or take a calculated stab at somebody else in the hope that we find a better solution….rinse and repeat until we hit.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't think we'll be seeing Messias or Saelemaekers in 26/27 when we're expected to be one of the top 8 sides in Europe. They're good squad options and we can sell them if there's a good deal on thet able. At some point we will upgrade the right side. It's just a matter of time.