Mercato Rossonero: Milan Transfer Activity Inside Out

Seems like Diego Lopez signing is getting pretty close.

http://gianlucadimarzio.com/milan/milan-diego-lopez-lagente-in-arrivo-in-italia-domani-si-puo-chiudere/

Di Marzio wrote:Constant leaves, Armero joins. In these minutes, Constant have put pen-to-paper on the documents that complete his move to Trabzonspor, which paid €2.5M to acquire him on a permanent deal. Meanwhile, Armero is increasingly close to Milan. The player will reach Italy on Sunday and will join Milan on loan, with no option to buy, at least at the moment.

Somebody paid 2.5m for Constant ?!

Armero is done. 500K now, 3.5m if we want to take up the option to buy.

DiRocco wrote:Honestly guys I think some are being too harsh on Dzemaili. While he is not a word class talent, he would certainly bring something to the Milan midfield at this time. I have seen many Napoli games and he has literally won a several games himself with crucial goals. He has experience in the champions league and at a fairly high level with Switzerland.

I think Napoli are only considering letting him go because he does not suit the dual pivot midfield used by Rafa. In a three man midfield he excels and could prove quite useful for Milan.

i agree
atleast he is better than the likes of muntari essien and he would be a very handy player because he did make a difference in big games

cant we just pay 5 million for taarabt than playing 15 million for cerci??

Di Marzio wrote:Milan have closed the deal for Diego Lopez. They have reached agreement with Real Madrid and the player. The goalkeeper will sign a four-year contract, he’ll take the medical on Monday. At this point, the only thing missing is the final signature by Real Madrid on the paperwork for the transfer. He joins on a free transfer, Milan will pay only some bonuses. After that, Diego Lopez will be officially a new Milan player.

He wanted €4m wages initially when Milan were offering him €2.5m so i'd assume he's been given an extra year in his contract to compensate for that.

Excellent news if true, I'll feel a lot more safe with a genuine number one now. It's also highly positive if we have concluded this deal now with some weeks left before the season begins, instead of asking new signings to establish a relationship with their team mates on the pitch after a day of training.

So he's to 0 ?
But his contract didn't expire in 2017 ?   
Anyway good upgrade for you in that role , the only doubt is about the 4 years of contract but probably it would have been difficult to convince in another way to join

Di Marzio says they'll pay some bonuses.

We were meant to pay bonuses on Kaka as well but got out of them because we had such a terrible year.

If we actually do well enough to trigger the bonuses then it will be money well spent.

dostoevsky wrote:We must also never forget that Sulley stopped Milan from signing Kuzmanovic by sacrificing himself and attacking him in the derby.

It is a pity that Di Marzio has rubbished the rumours of a loan move for Song, he would represent a massive upgrade over Essien and Muntari in the midfield rotation. Whilst he would be a capable emergency anchor, he is far better when given license to advance forward, something he would have the freedom to do with disciplined midfielders such as Montolivo and De Jong. It would only be a move I could sanction if we continued to cut down the squad though and it seems unlikely that we'll remove much more deadwood at this stage.

muntari as far as i am concerned has made lot of mistakes than good. occassional goal doesnt justify his performance given how much he looses ball, how much bad passes he makes, at times walking as pedestrian and leaving fellow defender super exposed.

personally i think that in midfield muntari and essien are the ones who should be removed pronto.

i would be really happy if dzemaili comes over and takes the place of muntari

Ah okay , while Agazzi should go to Sassuolo because Pegolo got injured (   downgrade )
Perin was probably the favorite choice for Milanisti but he costs much and Milan can't spend much in this period expecially it doesn't want to do it for a GK, never done in its history. At the maximum Galliani wanted to do it for Iturbe . And infact I think a GK to 0 with important experience ( starter in Real ) is the best solution, considering the other needs

JespSwe wrote:muntari as far as i am concerned has made lot of mistakes than good. occassional goal doesnt justify his performance given how much he looses ball, how much bad passes he makes, at times walking as pedestrian and leaving fellow defender super exposed.

personally i think that in midfield muntari and essien are the ones who should be removed pronto.

i would be really happy if dzemaili comes over and takes the place of muntari

I'm not making an argument that Muntari is a particularly good player, however I take issue with the concept of suggesting Muntari and Dzemaili would be in direct competition beyond the fact that they're obviously both candidates for roles beside De Jong in central midfield. They're quite different players and their use would depend less on their inherent quality and more on what the game requires, be it greater impetus in attack or the tenacity to protect a lead late on.

I want Muntari out, however if he is to leave, I would be incredibly uncomfortable having a midfield rotation in which Essien is the only alternative to De Jong to provide a defensive presence. I'd personally like to see them both leave and replaced with a more balanced option, but Dzemaili is not it. He's a useful player and if he comes, he'll of course have his use, but so did Birsa and Constant. All it does is give us another depth player who distracts us from chasing someone of real quality. If Dzemaili comes it essentially gives us a direct back-up for Poli, which is great, but a misuse of funds when we still have gaping holes elsewhere in the squad.

dostoevsky wrote:

JespSwe wrote:muntari as far as i am concerned has made lot of mistakes than good. occassional goal doesnt justify his performance given how much he looses ball, how much bad passes he makes, at times walking as pedestrian and leaving fellow defender super exposed.

personally i think that in midfield muntari and essien are the ones who should be removed pronto.

i would be really happy if dzemaili comes over and takes the place of muntari

I'm not making an argument that Muntari is a particularly good player, however I take issue with the concept of suggesting Muntari and Dzemaili would be in direct competition beyond the fact that they're obviously both candidates for roles beside De Jong in central midfield. They're quite different players and their use would depend less on their inherent quality and more on what the game requires, be it greater impetus in attack or the tenacity to protect a lead late on.

I want Muntari out, however if he is to leave, I would be incredibly uncomfortable having a midfield rotation in which Essien is the only alternative to De Jong to provide a defensive presence. I'd personally like to see them both leave and replaced with a more balanced option, but Dzemaili is not it. He's a useful player and if he comes, he'll of course have his use, but so did Birsa and Constant. All it does is give us another depth player who distracts us from chasing someone of real quality. If Dzemaili comes it essentially gives us a direct back-up for Poli, which is great, but a misuse of funds when we still have gaping holes elsewhere in the squad.

We don't need 2 DMs in a 3 man midfield - and that's assuming that Muntari or Essien could even be classified as DMs because their main role seems to be destroying our play by giving the ball away.

From the start, certainly not, but the point of depth players is not simply to provide exact replacements but also tactical flexibility.

Furthermore, whilst I don't like to consider the prospect of Muntari starting - Essien is dead to me, you all know this - we need at the very least, someone of his ilk. What happens if De Jong gets a month long injury? Our objective is to enforce our style on the opposition and to play the game in our opponent's half. A midfield consisting of Poli---Cristante---Dzemaili would be killed in transitions.

I would rather we dispose of Muntari, but if it is a choice between Muntari and no one, then retaining him is the lesser of two evils. If Dzemaili arrives then that's fine, but all it does is improve our depth with respect to a particular niche in midfield, whether he's better than Muntari or not is almost entirely irrelevant.

If you want to see the squad size cut then you need to remove those who received little to no game time without replacement (Essien) but those who enjoyed significant time (Muntari) with someone of a similar skill set. All Dzemaili would really be doing is shifting our strength in numbers from the number 10 position to central midfield as we transition from the 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-3 once more following the departures of Kaka and Birsa.

I don't think Dzemaili is that defensively limited, although I do see your point with regards to the De Jong injury scenario. I wrote about our vulnerability if De Jong were to get injured earlier in this thread. However, when I was writing about it, I considered the fact that Muntari was still at the club. Would Muntari make any difference should De Jong get injured? I highly doubt it. In all honesty, I'd rather have Poli-Cristante-Dzemaili playing instead of Poli-Muntari-Dzemaili. The reality is that any decent transfer dept. would buy a back-up DM to replace the incompetent Essien & Muntari, but we don't have that 'luxury'. We even got rid of our young DM prospect, Salamon, who I think is currently on loan at Sampdoria.

He's a hard worker and fairly disciplined, but taken as a collective it's a very light weight midfield. Also for the record, I don't believe Muntari should inhabit the anchor position in emergencies. Rather I would have him sit deeper in left central midfield to protect a light weight Cristante, akin to the manner in which he would occupy a deeper position in the days of Van Bommel to allow Seedorf and Boateng more freedom to move in the final third.

Also Salamon is now entirely owned by Sampdoria unfortunately as far as I know. I'd have liked to hold onto him this season whilst shedding the likes of Zaccardo but alas he was sacrificed in the Poli deal. Ideally I would have liked to see a player who primarily likes to roam but can play a disciplined role in an emergency arrive to replace Muntari, but removing Sulley has never seemed to be much of a priority from the board.

The board increasing Muntari's wage sends a pretty strong message on how we regard him lol

...we did what?

When Muntari renewed his contract in June, i read on Twitter that he also increased his wages to 2.5m p/y. Though, searching the web right now, i can't seem to find the figures

http://www.rossoneriblog.com/2014/06/18/official-muntari-extends-contract-to-2016/

El Shaarawy wrote:When Muntari renewed his contract in June, i read on Twitter that he also increased his wages to 2.5m p/y. Though, searching the web right now, i can't seem to find the figures

http://www.rossoneriblog.com/2014/06/18/official-muntari-extends-contract-to-2016/

Galliani be like:

When Pippo specifically asks for a left footed right winger and Galliani gets him Taarabt

is there any possibility of seeing mexes go? i mean now we have alex and rami and with zapata as well competing for the first team and he did have a decent world cup i guess mexes is pretty useless... bonera is going nowhere so the more mexes sits in bench the worse he is going to get. infact with his age he is going worse every year plus ... i dont quite remember him extending contract so is he still earning 4.5 million a year?

anyway lets hope we can just sell him and get some money....

Alex Song to Milan on Loan is being reported. Would you be for or against this?

I thought that report had been dismissed almost as soon as it emerged, however I think it would be a clever move if we could remove Muntari and Essien from the squad and replace them with Song. We must still sell players to bring new ones in and I doubt we'll see anything eventuate however. I imagine his wages might also prove an issue.

JespSwe wrote:is there any possibility of seeing mexes go? i mean now we have alex and rami and with zapata as well competing for the first team and he did have a decent world cup i guess mexes is pretty useless... bonera is going nowhere so the more mexes sits in bench the worse he is going to get. infact with his age he is going worse every year plus ... i dont quite remember him extending contract so is he still earning 4.5 million a year?

anyway lets hope we can just sell him and get some money....

There seemed to be suggestions that we were trying to find a new home for Mexes earlier in the window, offering him to both Zenit and Genoa, however it seems like he has had no offers.

I personally think that Alex and Rami are too similar to play with each other, however they've clearly both been led to believe that they'll be starting after the trouble we went to secure both and Mexes' wages are far too high to justify even as a starter, let alone as a reserve. It might be difficult, but releasing Mexes is a priority in my eyes in order to free up funds and reduce the size of our bloated central defence. Had we only brought in one of Alex or Rami, which I think would have been more appropriate, he might have been able to fight for his place, but as things stand it's time for him to depart sadly.