They have fucked up so bad, it's crazy the more I think about it.
Let's dismiss the notion that they want to win, even if that's what all the executives (and owner himself) have said multiple times. We can't believe what they said, they just said that to raise the expectations of their fans (customers) so that they could disappoint them, that's what ruthless American corporate businessmen learn at Harvard: over-promise and under-deliver. Customers love that. It's brilliant business, you should use it, it's a top tip free-of-charge from Redbird.
Let's forget that Fonseca, the martyr and saint who was the only real truth teller in Milan, kept saying (multiple times) from the start that his goal was, and I quote: "to win the Scudetto."
Let's say that's all bullshit and all they really wanted is to get top four. Cool. I'll accept that notion.
We're in fucking 9th, lol. We're behind teams who spend far less than we do, have less talent than we do, and we've went through three revolutions in two years--we've seen them make a lot of choices: who to sell, who to keep, who to buy... why should we see this summer as some sort of given that they'll turn things around?
Because they tacitly admitted to being wrong, even if they couldn't openly admit it? We're demanding the players prostrate before us and cut off their thumbs, but we're supposed to be placated by them reportedly going after an SD?
We saw what they did in January when they saw that top four was in real danger. We saw how long they kept Fonseca on, the circumstances of his firing, the context of when they appointed Conceicao, and what players they brought in--it shows where they thought the problems were and how they don't understand where they are fucking up.
Just look at their midfield recruitment the last two years. You can see their philosophy of what midfielders to buy, who to sell, because that's more glaring than Chuk being a bust, bad transfers happen, but look at the midfield unit they've rebuilt... it's terrible.
I hope that this disaster of a season is just a brief low-point before unleashing some inexplicable extended period of glory where "Berlusconi 2.0" isn't a punchline. I love winning and success more than I care about my stupid theories--but then I remember that the superior financial health of Milan over other Italian teams makes the drastic under-performance even harder for me to accept.
Inter, Napoli, Juve, Roma... none of these clubs have City, PSG, or even Bayern sorts of resources--why is competing with them for domestic titles so absurd a demand? I fundamentally don't understand that. If you want to waive away European ambitions, okay, I can understand that perspective, even if I don't fully agree with it, but I get it.
Why is expecting that we should compete for the Scudetto so absurd though? Juve and Inter have higher wage bills than we do, okay, but... Napoli might be winning their second Scudetto in three years, and we spend more money on wages than they do. Oh, they sold Kvara (to pay for Conte purchases in the summer) even if they had him for the first half of this season, so... Uh, we sold Tonali two years ago, did we make that jump? Nope.
If they fucked up the Tonali proceeds, how am I supposed to trust them if they sell Reijnders or Leao or Theo? Even if I accepted the idea that Tonali's sale was for Reijnders and Pulisic (around 40m of a ~115m summer) that still means that they wasted most of the money on Chuk and Okafor and Terra and RLC and Musah and Pellegrino and Terra, and then followed up those smash hits with Emerson, Pavlovic, Fofana, Sottil, Tammy, Morata, Walker, Bondo, Felix, and Santi. Like, why are we evening pretending there is a comparison between our previous regime and the last two years of shit?
Napoli at least have the excuse of a crazy owner, and while, yes, he is the reason that Napoli has emerged as a power in Serie A again, but you could argue he's prevented them from winning more titles with his meddling, with his magnum opus being their disaster of a season last year (with Kvara and Osimhen)--but like... if Napoli win, their second Scudetto in three years, why is demanding that Milan compete for domestic titles such a crazy thing? Why is such a demand absurd?
Frankly, I think this is where we disagree: I don't doubt Redbird's ambitions, I think they want to win, I just think they are incompetent. Top four is obviously the minimum, but they've fucked up top four so badly that to me, it is irrelevant whether their true goal is to win or to get top four, because whether they want to win or just get top four... they... they are fucking terrible. Comically terrible.
How can the conclusion be that they are anything but hilariously incompetent if you say that all they care about is top four and they're distantly 9th, not even "in the hunt" for a top four spot? We're behind Roma, who fired three coaches this season, we're behind Lazio, we're behind Bologna, and Fiorentina... and Atalanta... Jeez, we're also behind Juventus... it's just... how can you be this fucking bad?
My only hope is that their financial incentives to get Milan into the top four override their incompetence next season, but my fear, now, is that even that won't work.
