And So The Italian League Adventure Begins... Badly
Injury News
Absolute disaster! Gianluigi Donnarumma (the good Donnarumma) is out for 2-4 months with a hip injury. Given the importance of the upcoming fixtures, this could not have happened at a worse time. To add insult to injury, Antonio Donnarumma (the inferior Donnarumma) is also out for a couple of weeks. So it looks like our EL future is in the hands, all to literally, of a 40 year old bloke named Marco Storari who I hadn’t planned on allowing to see daylight, never mind any playing time this season. Delightful!
Best Placed Play Off – Leg 1
AC Milan 4-0 Sheriff
Borini, Suso (3)
Suso Easy!
I allowed Locatelli to continue in midfield from the off due to his recent good performances again. We had a slow enough start and were only 1-0 up at half time, but kicked on with a glorious Suso hat trick in the second half. This included a ridiculous free kick from miles out. Other good things from this game – a clean sheet for Storari, who probably only touched the ball a handful of times and Romagnoli managed not to give a penalty away – Hurrah!
AC Milan 0-2 Juventus (League Fixture 1)
Self-Destruct Button Activated!
Bonucci returned to captained AC Milan against his former club. Lucas Biglia will be vice captain when he is (finally) fit again. Juventus came in to this game in good form having beaten Lazio 3-0 last weekend to win the Italian Super Cup. The only good news is that they were missing Dybala through injury.
We were actually quite unlucky to go 1-0 down to a well worked Gonzalo Higuain goal on 22 mins. However, after that we went in to meltdown. 6 yellow cards. 2 red cards to Musacchio and Rodriguez – 2 players I’d chosen for their ‘experience’ in this game. Kessie also thought it would be fun to give away a stupid penalty which Higuain also converted. So in summary, we played quite well but must have been watching too much Fight Club on the bus over to this one.
Best Placed Play Off – Leg 2
Sheriff 0–1 AC Milan (Milan win 5-0 on aggregate)
Andre Silva
Silva Lining To a Rubbish Week
Antonio Donnarumma (no, not the good one) returned in goal for this one and managed a good clean sheet. A host of players were given their first starts of the season (Calabria, Antonelli, Oduamadi, Catrone, Silva and Donnarumma) as this one was over before it started. The result was a forgone conclusion but it was nice for Andre Silva to pick up his first goal for the club. Not quite so good was Catrone coming off injury – he’s done for 3-4 weeks now.
The result means we are through to the EL group stages. Job done!
Europa League Group Stage Draw
AC MIlan
Real San Sebastian (Spain)
Hoffenheim (Germany)
Oostende (Belgium)
This was a reasonable draw for us. I expect Hoffenheim to be good, but the other 2 hopefully won’t be up to much. In terms of travel it’s a very good draw. No three day donkey ride to the far side of Russia is always good.
Lazio 3-1 AC Milan (League Fixture 2)
Borini
Literally Self Inflicted Wounds Hurt
This was the game our incredible injury list finally caught up with us. We went behind after 7 minutes, but actually played well to get back into the game through a Borini goal. Then it all started to unravel. Antonelli went off with a puled groin. Calhanoglu even managed to run into Andre Silva resulting in the former sustaining a concussion and the latter sustaining a gash to the head! Steam was literally spouting from my ears at this point. Both had to come off injured and are out for a few weeks. Ridiculous day out.
Month in Review
Overall, it has been a woeful disappointing start to the league season. We have been massively caught out with how thin our squad is. This emphasised the need for me to invest in some young players and ship out the dead wood quickly to prevent this happening again. Still, this is probably our two most difficult league fixtures out of the way early. We have an easy EL group. We have made some decent signings and got rid of a lot of poor quality players who were earning a lot of money. We also don’t have too long to wait until we get a few of our injured players back.
Star Performer
Suso (AMR) – Is this really the same bloke who couldn’t get a kick at Liverpool? Quality player vindicating why I am literally playing a formation entirely so he can get on the field.
Concerning Performer
Hakan Calhanoglu (AMC) – He hasn’t really done much to justify his place in the team. The problem is, no one else can play in his position, so he simply has to do better.
Injury Update
Players – Time Until Return
Andrea Conti – 5-6 months
Luca Antonelli 3-5 weeks
Gianluigi Donarumma – 2-5 weeks
Hakan Calhanoglu – 9-11 days
Giacomo Bonaventura – 8 days – 2 weeks
Patrick Catrone – 8 days – 3 weeks
Andre Silva – 1-3 days
Lucas Biglia - 1 day
Transfers
Transfer Budget: £25m
Wage Budget: £117k
Strategy:
I aim to keep up Milan’s proud history of signing a good number of Dutch players as well as Italian to keep the club true to it’s roots. This is something Milan haven’t done well for a quite a few years. I also aim to meet my philosophy of signing a good number of young players for the future.
Players Out:
Cristian Zapata – £5.5m – AS Roma
Gustavo Gomez – £3m – Hertha Berlin
Jose Mauri - £825k – Bologna
Zapata needed to move on as he was 30 and not good enough to start. I was a bit disappointed to lose him to a rival like Roma, but he isn’t that good and I got decent money. The other 2 simply weren’t good enough and were on considerable wages which they weren’t justifying.
Players In:
Justin Kluivert (AML)– £5.25m – AFC Ajax (loaned back until the end of the season)
The name alone is reason enough to sign this guy! Just like his infamous father Patrick, Justin will be playing for Milan – just not right now. I felt it was better to get this deal done now as he will inevitably dramatically increase in price by next year. Loaning him back to Ajax also means he will develop nicely and play every week. He will definitely make an impact next season.
Matthijs De Ligt (CB) - £12.5m – AFC Ajax
Another Dutch signing who will address our need for youth at centre back. At 17, he will have lots of time to develop – he already even has 2 caps! One for the future who will play here and there when needed. I’m looking forward to seeing exactly how good this guy can get.
Fred (CM)– £17m – Shakhtar Donestsk
Fred comes into the squad at a good time due to our endless list of injured midfielders. He’s strong, quick and has an eye for goal. That will do for me. O and he’s Brazilian – what’s not to like? Hopefully he can be a difference maker for us.
Devid Bouah (DR) - £1.2m– AS Roma
An Italian right back who isn’t actually old enough to sign a professional contract yet. He will do in time, but for now, he’s a good signing for the future and prevents Roma from having him as well.
Mateo Politano (AML) - £10.5m– Sassuolo
Politano addresses a major need in that we don’t have enough good quality wide players. I had went for him at the start of the window, but got rejected. He kicked off enough of a fuss to get himself transfer listed, so at that point, I went back in and got him on the cheap. Excellent. He is young (24) and Italian with a point to prove. Will challenge Borini for playing time.
Coming Up In The Next Post…
The EL group stage campaign
Injury updates
Trying to fix our shocking league form
Note:
I am open to all feedback and comments as always. Why not answer some of the following questions?
1. How can I fix my terrible league form?
2. What do you make of my signings?
3. How will I do this season?
