The Rumour Commode XXXV: Champions Edition

[Longbowman]

Inter did well against Liverpool but were never really close to progressing. We were comfortably outplayed by the same team.

We finished last in our group behind Porto who dominated us twice.

Atalanta were the better team yet didn’t manage a win against an awful Manchester United team.
Ended up losing qualification to Spain’s 7th best team who went on to also knock Juve out.

Juve won 1-0 against Chelsea and were beaten 0-4 in the reverse fixture.

Napoli were humiliated by Barca.

Roma have failed to beat Bodo-Glimt of Norway in three meetings, losing two of those, one of them 6-1. 10-4 is the goal tally across those 3 meetings in favour of the Norwegians.

Come Friday there like won’t be any Italian teams in any of the three European competitions.

Serie A is rubbish

I agree to an extent but you are a bit too harsh..
Serie A teams in Europe are struggling..
Inter has been severely weakened and unlucky to draw Real and then Liverpool

We are still babies in Europe and were unlucky to get a tough group and lot of poor refereeing decisions and injuries

Juve are at their worst in 10 years.

Atalanta's cycle is over.
Lazio has an ageing squad and no money.
Roma is in transition.
Napoli got the worst possible draw against an in form Barca.

If Inter kept last year's team/we had some luck vs Athletico/Napoli were in CL instead of Juve, the narrative would have been different.

However the league is on the way up.. Torino, Fiorentina and the lower clubs have improved a lot.. we have a proper title race.. more foreign owners are coming..

Next year could be the best for serie A in CL with the Big 3 qualifying for it for the first time since 2010 I think

 

[Levi]

I agree to an extent but you are a bit too harsh..
Serie A teams in Europe are struggling..
Inter has been severely weakened and unlucky to draw Real and then Liverpool

We are still babies in Europe and were unlucky to get a tough group and lot of poor refereeing decisions and injuries

Juve are at their worst in 10 years.

Atalanta's cycle is over.
Lazio has an ageing squad and no money.
Roma is in transition.
Napoli got the worst possible draw against an in form Barca.

If Inter kept last year's team/we had some luck vs Athletico/Napoli were in CL instead of Juve, the narrative would have been different.

However the league is on the way up.. Torino, Fiorentina and the lower clubs have improved a lot.. we have a proper title race.. more foreign owners are coming..

Next year could be the best for serie A in CL with the Big 3 qualifying for it for the first time since 2010 I think

I think you're reaching. I see no sign of progress but a slow and steady decline. I mean, we are first and we produce some of the most unsigthly football in recent history. That sums it up in a nutshell.

 

[Qaas]

Your banter era started later than ours, but it's okay, you are now City's little brother.

Our DHL guy did better than your waste of money, lol. That's like "oh yeah?! Your stupid crap car WORKS?! Well, my Rolls Royce? It... won't start, so who is stupid now!?"

You know what? Qaas, it's Ramadan and I'm trying to be nice. Don't make me be meaner.

You can’t even compare uniteds so called banter era to milans. No recent top club will ever fall as hard as milan did the past 10 years.

As for jadon sancho, he was fantastic at Dormund. 16 goals and 20 assists in 38 matches. You guys would all celebrate could milan afford him last season

- meaner?? What could you possibly type that these other commoders already didn’t write

 

[Kojak]

@AC_Wesley

Next commode title (obviously based on results) 'We Are The Champions!'

 

[Kuroha]

I have a feeling that this guy will explode (like Tammy) IF we get a quality AM + RW and Leao/Tonali/Theo/Kalulu etc continue to improve.

I don't understand why would anyone don't want him especially for FREE

 

[Qaas]

I agree to an extent but you are a bit too harsh..
Serie A teams in Europe are struggling..
Inter has been severely weakened and unlucky to draw Real and then Liverpool

We are still babies in Europe and were unlucky to get a tough group and lot of poor refereeing decisions and injuries

Juve are at their worst in 10 years.

Atalanta's cycle is over.
Lazio has an ageing squad and no money.
Roma is in transition.
Napoli got the worst possible draw against an in form Barca.

If Inter kept last year's team/we had some luck vs Athletico/Napoli were in CL instead of Juve, the narrative would have been different.

However the league is on the way up.. Torino, Fiorentina and the lower clubs have improved a lot.. we have a proper title race.. more foreign owners are coming..

Next year could be the best for serie A in CL with the Big 3 qualifying for it for the first time since 2010 I think

all 3 were in it this season

 

[Master Smurf]

I think you're reaching. I see no sign of progress but a slow and steady decline. I mean, we are first and we produce some of the most unsigthly football in recent history. That sums it up in a nutshell.

If we make the correct purchases I think Milan, Napoli and Juve will be better next year. Roma can go either way because I dont have faith in Mou, the players may trust him or quickly grow tired of his antics. Fiorentina may also be more consistent or maybe thats just recency bias.

How we stack up against Europe I have no clue

 

[Pingu]

Milan got outplayed in 4/6 games. Didn't deserve to qualify anyway.

You won 10 million USD in the lottery, but came 4th in the draw and didn't win the jackpot. Then someone robbed you of that 10 million USD.

But it's fine, you didn't deserve that anyway, you got outplayed by finishing 4th. Should've picked better numbers in the draw!

 

[MilanBG]

You should really stop comparing/assessing leagues based on EU campaigns. Winning CL often requires more luck than anything else. Good draws, suspensions, clutch injuries, bad/good form. We're talking about 6 games in the autumn and 6-7 games in the spring. Total of 13 games MAXIMUM. Very often a team can hit/drop form in the best/worst possible time. If certain teams are eliminated in the group stage it doesn't mean that they are worse than some of the teams that advanced. For example Dortmund were knocked out in one of the easiest groups they could possible draw because of countless injuries. If they play this group 10 more times, they will advance 9 times. We were eliminated because we were part of the group of death and a major referee fuck up. Despite being dominated by Porto we had a pretty decent chance to advance if Cakir wasn't such a cunt. Merda drew an incredibly easy group and still had to fight a lot. They left CL because they drew the worst possible opponent for the 1/8 finals. If the initial draw had been legit, they were probably going to beat Ajax. Atalanta were knocked out because of Man Utd's notorious luck. None of these KOs means that these teams suck or team XXX from another country is better.

Point is, team XXX fucking up in Europe (even numerous times) doesn't mean that it is a bad team. CL has a lot of luck involved, unlike the local leagues in which you know all the opponents you are going to face. In CL, on the other hand, you can draw something like what merda were up for - group with nobodies from fucking Moldova + Ukrainian team + Real who looked like shit in the autumn, 1/8 against Ajax, 1/4 against Benfica and 1/2 against Villareal and could legit go to final. Them making the final doesn't mean that they are better than Bayern/PSG who were knocked out before the final. It means that they hit good form in the right time and had an easy draw. This could happen the opposite way too. In many of our past campaigns we were always drawing the worst possible opponents like Man Utd last season or Arsenal in 2018. Or the group of death this season.

 

[Kojak]

View attachment 3146

View attachment 3147


I don't understand why would anyone don't want him especially for FREE

Exactly...I've trawled through Liverpool forums and the majority of fans recognise that he's a very good player and are sad to see him go (some even consider him a Kop legend). This isn't like the Duarte/Ballo-Turd signings where their previous clubs' fans were celebrating their departures and laughing at us for buying them which ultimately proved to be correct.

 

[Master Smurf]

You all really need to stop with this victimization syndrome

When it was all on the line for us to still qualify against Liverpool our players looked like they wanted to be anywhere else but trying to win a football match.
In sports things go against you - if it was the one and only decision like a final then yes constantly moan all you want but they were plenty games where we just werent good enough.
Next season we will do better.

But you cant say we are building this dominating team and when persons point to the fact that none of that has been shown yet take offence.

 

[Casualista]

You won 10 million USD in the lottery, but came 4th in the draw and didn't win the jackpot. Then someone robbed you of that 10 million USD.

But it's fine, you didn't deserve that anyway, you got outplayed by finishing 4th. Should've picked better numbers in the draw!

Should have bought the faivre-alvarez burglary insurance to mitigate the chances of getting robbed then?

You didn't get insurance, you rolled the die , you got your cheeks tapped and then you got robbed and now you're crying about how life is unfair.

 

[Longbowman]

all 3 were in it this season

Yeah.. my bad.. what I meant to say was that it is best for serie A to have consistent qualification of the Big 3.. Atalanta for instance fluffed their chance when they could have made the step up.. I think the Big 3 will be more ambitious given the fan expectations and history.. overall good for serie A

 

[Neo'82]

 

[R.Akbar]

View attachment 3146

View attachment 3147


I don't understand why would anyone don't want him especially for FREE

Everyone in this forum knows him by stats,
(or that one time they watched CL semi)

Stats wise, he's...well... Unappealing

 

[leaf]

I have a feeling that this guy will explode (like Tammy) IF we get a quality AM + RW and Leao/Tonali/Theo/Kalulu etc continue to improve.

we shouldn't be factoring so much hopes on external factors for a transfer.
Take Belotti for instance...I'm definitely not his biggest fan but he can come here and improve this team NOW and as we are.
See also Vlahovic etc. If you need this many conditions to have a player come here and do well, then you shouldn't get him.

 

[Kuroha]

Adrián Bernabé is an ex-Man City midget that remind me of someone

 

[Kojak]

we shouldn't be factoring so much hopes on external factors for a transfer.
Take Belotti for instance...I'm definitely not his biggest fan but he can come here and improve this team NOW and as we are.
See also Vlahovic etc. If you need this many conditions to have a player come here and do well, then you shouldn't get him.

I think that Origi could make a difference right now too although he has the potential to explode if we reinforce the team correctly (as could Belotti).

 

[Wild]

Oh, except the Spanish Champions? Just except them? Because when people say "LiVeRpOoL rEseRvEs" as if we played our full strength team, we weren't even physically able to in most (if not all) of our CL games, does that maybe, possibly, perchance, perhaps, factor into our performances? Krunic as our LW? Krunic? Krunic? It's annoying.

Just a few questions: Do you think Porto's goals should have stood? Did previous iterations of Milan's great teams have bad games, but win ugly? If so, would suffering through Porto games, had their goals been disallowed, but still winning ugly 1-0 or getting an away 0-0, would that not have been a sign of progress?

I just find it hilarious that if I talk about how Milan should have had x or y result, I'm the one who is crazy, but then I have to listen people talk about other teams who shoulda, coulda, woulda, and then you want to pretend you (not you Smurf) are sensible? Please.

Are ref also acting against Milan in CL ?
FFS just stop being such an apologist.
Atletico is in pathetic form & even then they are playing the quarters why we arent & they only lost 1-0 to City.
Milan is far from ready to compete in the CL & the fact we were last of our group say it all.

 

[Alo88]

2019 to now has been fantastic, no question. On both the commercial and sporting side of things.

But, if you compare last season to this, there hasn’t been an upward trajectory - as you had mentioned, just 2 points.

My point is, we need to make investments sooner rather than later or we risk losing the impressive core that we have built. Last summer was disastrous by all accounts, however hard we try to defend it by looking at the larger picture

What makes you think those investments won't be made? Last summer we almost spent 80M. 80M! And that while being 90M in the red, coming from 190M in the red the year before. It's easy for us fans to simply brush that away and say "I don't care about Finance d'Or, I'm here for the trophies", but that doesn't change that the people in charge will have to care about Finance d'Or nonetheless. I too would have liked to get a RW or AM for a final Scudetto push for this season. I was disappointed we didn't. But who am I as a fan to think I know better than those who actually do run the club and do make the final calls and who not only have a huge responsibility to us fans, but also to hundreds of employees whose jobs depend on the club being well and stably run?

Nevertheless we apparently already wrapped up Botman and Origi. There are talks of Sanchez being very close. Adli is already on his way. And the season hasn't even finished. There's a whole summer mercato further down the line. There is more evidence that there will be more investments this summer than not. So why all those worries about our core being on the verge of jumping the ship, especially weeks after Theo renewed and Leao and Benny apparently are as good as renewed assets too?

A small price to pay for the Tricolore

Don’t throw me into the negative brigade just yet though, I have a fair amount of posts praising this project as well. Just frustrated as hell with our recent performances

I can totally relate, believe me, the whole week feels like shit because we didn't win... again. I'm as disappointed as you are. And I get that it's easier to just give in to the negativity and expect the worst. But it is also - and I don't mean to come across offensively - rather cheap to already prepare a bail-out with a simple "but I'll gladly eat my words if everything turns out well after all." Hey, we're still leading, aren't we? This is not the time for doom and gloom. Not yet .

I for one am PLEASED that we've hit a dry patch and are struggling to score goals. Why? Because it will force management to finally address the issues we all identified last summer i.e. relying on two grandpa's up front, novice AM and a pizza maker + delivery boy @ RW. Once these issues are finally resolved Milan will be practically unbeatable as we already have one of the best defences in Europe BEFORE Botman joins.

Wait, what?

What logic is this? If we didn't struggle to score goals, it'd mean that the issues weren't issues to begin with. It would mean Messias was the revelation of the season, that Diaz was fullfilling his potential. It would mean that Giroud and Zlatan were banging goals as they should. It would mean that Leao soon was going to be considered for the Ballon d'Or. It would mean we probably would have wrapped up Scudetto already.

Why wouldn't you want that to happen? Is it more important to you to be right? Really?

You should really stop comparing/assessing leagues based on EU campaigns. Winning CL often requires more luck than anything else. Good draws, suspensions, clutch injuries, bad/good form. We're talking about 6 games in the autumn and 6-7 games in the spring. Total of 13 games MAXIMUM. Very often a team can hit/drop form in the best/worst possible time. If certain teams are eliminated in the group stage it doesn't mean that they are worse than some of the teams that advanced. For example Dortmund were knocked out in one of the easiest groups they could possible draw because of countless injuries. If they play this group 10 more times, they will advance 9 times. We were eliminated because we were part of the group of death and a major referee fuck up. Despite being dominated by Porto we had a pretty decent chance to advance if Cakir wasn't such a cunt. Merda drew an incredibly easy group and still had to fight a lot. They left CL because they drew the worst possible opponent for the 1/8 finals. If the initial draw had been legit, they were probably going to beat Ajax. Atalanta were knocked out because of Man Utd's notorious luck. None of these KOs means that these teams suck or team XXX from another country is better.

Point is, team XXX fucking up in Europe (even numerous times) doesn't mean that it is a bad team. CL has a lot of luck involved, unlike the local leagues in which you know all the opponents you are going to face. In CL, on the other hand, you can draw something like what merda were up for - group with nobodies from fucking Moldova + Ukrainian team + Real who looked like shit in the autumn, 1/8 against Ajax, 1/4 against Benfica and 1/2 against Villareal and could legit go to final. Them making the final doesn't mean that they are better than Bayern/PSG who were knocked out before the final. It means that they hit good form in the right time and had an easy draw. This could happen the opposite way too. In many of our past campaigns we were always drawing the worst possible opponents like Man Utd last season or Arsenal in 2018. Or the group of death this season.

I 100% agree with a MilanBG post. What's happening?

 

[tonyb]

Inter did well against Liverpool but were never really close to progressing. We were comfortably outplayed by the same team.

We finished last in our group behind Porto who dominated us twice.

Atalanta were the better team yet didn’t manage a win against an awful Manchester United team.
Ended up losing qualification to Spain’s 7th best team who went on to also knock Juve out.

Juve won 1-0 against Chelsea and were beaten 0-4 in the reverse fixture.

Napoli were humiliated by Barca.

Roma have failed to beat Bodo-Glimt of Norway in three meetings, losing two of those, one of them 6-1. 10-4 is the goal tally across those 3 meetings in favour of the Norwegians.

Come Friday there like won’t be any Italian teams in any of the three European competitions.

Serie A is rubbish

Bayern Munich are trash too, huh? Based on your logic.

Atalanta are Italy's 5th best team, where do you rate Manchester United in EPL? Surely 6th at least? Look at their squad. If they're so bad, they should've been dispatched easily by Atletico then?
Is a 1-1 draw away to Liepzig embarrassing too? Pretty sure they were doing very well in Europe last year..

Roma will qualify too.

 

[Master Smurf]

Adrián Bernabé is an ex-Man City midget that remind me of someone

If so Maldini may have a fetish

 

[Nalim]

You should really stop comparing/assessing leagues based on EU campaigns. Winning CL often requires more luck than anything else. Good draws, suspensions, clutch injuries, bad/good form. We're talking about 6 games in the autumn and 6-7 games in the spring. Total of 13 games MAXIMUM. Very often a team can hit/drop form in the best/worst possible time. If certain teams are eliminated in the group stage it doesn't mean that they are worse than some of the teams that advanced. For example Dortmund were knocked out in one of the easiest groups they could possible draw because of countless injuries. If they play this group 10 more times, they will advance 9 times. We were eliminated because we were part of the group of death and a major referee fuck up. Despite being dominated by Porto we had a pretty decent chance to advance if Cakir wasn't such a cunt. Merda drew an incredibly easy group and still had to fight a lot. They left CL because they drew the worst possible opponent for the 1/8 finals. If the initial draw had been legit, they were probably going to beat Ajax. Atalanta were knocked out because of Man Utd's notorious luck. None of these KOs means that these teams suck or team XXX from another country is better.

Point is, team XXX fucking up in Europe (even numerous times) doesn't mean that it is a bad team. CL has a lot of luck involved, unlike the local leagues in which you know all the opponents you are going to face. In CL, on the other hand, you can draw something like what merda were up for - group with nobodies from fucking Moldova + Ukrainian team + Real who looked like shit in the autumn, 1/8 against Ajax, 1/4 against Benfica and 1/2 against Villareal and could legit go to final. Them making the final doesn't mean that they are better than Bayern/PSG who were knocked out before the final. It means that they hit good form in the right time and had an easy draw. This could happen the opposite way too. In many of our past campaigns we were always drawing the worst possible opponents like Man Utd last season or Arsenal in 2018. Or the group of death this season.

Look at the Champions League finals since the restructuring / renaming of the tournament in 92/93. The representation of the leagues in those finals almost perfectly illustrate what league’s were dominant at which period.

Italian football was king in the 90’s when Milan and Juve played almost all the finals.
Then in the 00’s it became a three way horse race between Italy, England and Spain.
Spain won and went on to dominate the 10’s and now England has ultimately taken over.

Of course there’s an element of luck to winning a cup trophy, but the fact of the matter is that these years England will have 4 potential winners at the start of each campaign, Spain will have 2/3, Germany wil have 1, France will have 1 and Italy will have 0.

 

[Nalim]

Bayern Munich are trash too, huh? Based on your logic.

Atalanta are Italy's 5th best team, where do you rate Manchester United in EPL? Surely 6th at least? Look at their squad. If they're so bad, they should've been dispatched easily by Atletico then?
Is a 1-1 draw away to Liepzig embarrassing too? Pretty sure they were doing very well in Europe last year..

Roma will qualify too.

Bayern aren’t very good right at this moment, no. But that’s beside the point. Good teams can lose to lesser opponents.

My point is that Italian teams either lose (and sometimes emphatically) to teams they should be beating or they go up against teams that are approximately on their level, but then they still lose.

 

[Milan10]

Last summer we had to solidify the progress we made by exercising loan options for Tomori and Tonali. That is an investment in the squad. We purchased by far, like by farrrrrrrrr, the best keeper in Serie A.

That’s 3 players right there that will start for Milan for the next 4 years at least, none of them conceivably having reached their respective primes. Additionally, we purchased Adli, who is young and promising enough to think he may be a starter for years to come.

It doesn’t take a brilliant mind to suggest “WE SHOULD HAVE SPENT MORE $ WE COULD BE CHAMPIONS!” No fucking shit, Sherlock. But funds are LIMITED. There is a BUDGET. People live with a FIFA career mode/football manager mentality, but that’s not how the world works. Have you ever been held to a budget or run a business? You don’t get to just print and spend money, you have to make choices, prioritize, try to grow the business so your budget grows and you can invest in the years to come.

What could Maldini have done differently on a limited budget? Ok, you want a RW/CAM, so do you give Maignan, Tomori, or Tonali to make that possible? Could we have found a better CAM/RW for 9M and not signed Adli? That’s what people cannot get through their mind, what we’ve done on a limited budget is remarkable. If your answer is, well, we should just have invested MOAR, then you have some growing up to do, or you simply don’t operate in the business world.

Milan has been run soundly with a positive trajectory from right around the time Pioli arrived. Saying this year hasn’t continued that positive trajectory is absolutely devoid of logic and sound judgement. We competed in the CL for the first time in a decade and battled through just ridiculous injuries to get to the point with 6 matches left where we are leading the league with as good a chance as anyone to win.

On the revenue side, Gazidis has greatly improved our revenue off the pitch and CL money will be available this summer. We don’t have any options to exercise other than Messias or Florenzi, both unlikely…. We already have Adli and Origi coming… there should be somewhere between 50 and 70M to spend this summer on top of them. We SHOULD take another step forward this summer. We SHOULD be favored to win the Scudetto next season when it’s all said and done and should make it out of the CL group we land in.

You just have to be patient, which I understand is almost impossible in this world of instant gratification. Our whole core less Kessie and possibly Ibra returns next season. With some additions it will be one step closer to Italian dominance and European contention.

 

[Longbowman]

Though I hate to admit it, EPL is now the dominant league with all the money in the world.. but only 3 teams seem to have been built for long term success in City, Liverpool and Chelsea.. though we have to see how Chelsea is going to be run under new ownership..
Bayern's dominance will be there to stay but they are no longer as strong as they were with Robben-Ribery era.. once Lewandowski is gone, they will be at a level similar to 2002-06 Man UTD.. a good strong team but nothing great/special.
PSG is the epitome of how not to run a football club.

Real will always remain good but they will be weaker than 2014-18 Real.. just like we found out post 2007, it is difficult to replace legendary players and once Benzema, Modric, Kroos retires, they will be a strong team but no longer legendary. But Mbappe signing could be turning point.

Barca if they keep Pedri, Gavi and co. could be the next big thing if Xavi-ball remains successful.

Point being we have a good opportunity to return to being regular Quarter finalists in CL .. IF we keep the core and continue to build around it..

But I am not too hopeful for other Serie A teams given the new FFP.

 

[Milan10]

Do you guys fucking remember last year around this time? The entire board was in tatters. There were posters in the fetal position posting about how we were collapsing and about to spend another year in the Europa League!

The positive trajectory hasn’t continued my ass. That’s a blind ass take.

 

[Milan10]

Though I hate to admit it, EPL is now the dominant league with all the money in the world.. but only 3 teams seem to have been built for long term success in City, Liverpool and Chelsea.. though we have to see how Chelsea is going to be run under new ownership..
Bayern's dominance will be there to stay but they are no longer as strong as they were with Robben-Ribery era.. once Lewandowski is gone, they will be at a level similar to 2002-06 Man UTD.. a good strong team but nothing great/special.
PSG is the epitome of how not to run a football club.

Real will always remain good but they will be weaker than 2014-18 Real.. just like we found out post 2007, it is difficult to replace legendary players and once Benzema, Modric, Kroos retires, they will be a strong team but no longer legendary. But Mbappe signing could be turning point.

Barca if they keep Pedri, Gavi and co. could be the next big thing if Xavi-ball remains successful.

Point being we have a good opportunity to return to being regular Quarter finalists in CL .. IF we keep the core and continue to build around it..

But I am not too hopeful for other Serie A teams given the new FFP.

Serie A needs to cut to 16 or 18 teams IMMEDIATELY to increase the revenue split and get rid of shitty teams (that we can’t beat lol) at the bottom of the league.

Then, there needs to be huge pressure placed on building stadiums throughout the country and bringing in foreign investors.

 

[Milan10]

You neanderthals also forget the fact that our previous owners/managers, whose names we shouldn’t deface this message board with, PISSED off UEFA to the point where we are one of the only clubs that has been under a microscope and actually punished under the FFP rules.

Like, that management team literally fabricated bullshit financials and submitted them to UEFA. We got slapped with a European ban, and have been closely scrutinized ever since.

That’s not nothing, it’s quite a big deal and something our current management has had to navigate. So, it’s not just a matter of Elliott not spending enough money, we’ve been tightly bound by that FFP horse shit since they took over.

 

[Pingu]

Should have bought the faivre-alvarez burglary insurance to mitigate the chances of getting robbed then?

You didn't get insurance, you rolled the die , you got your cheeks tapped and then you got robbed and now you're crying about how life is unfair.

But what if the man in charge of the insurance system purposefully ensures you get robbed? Might not matter what insurance you have if there's still a chance you can get robbed, even if it can statistically help.