The Rade Krunic saga is finally about to come to an end with the midfielder set to join Fenerbahce on a permanent deal, but the way AC Milan have handled things deserves scrutiny.
We start from a perhaps controversial: Milan sold Krunic six months late, and as a result they were forced to let him go for a price that is arguably well below the value they should have received.
It is necessary to start from this assumption, made as always with the benefit of hindsight, to understand in depth what are the dynamics that prevail at Milan during the mercato and the mistakes that were made.
The Krunic deal doesn’t shift the balance seismically, it’s true, and if done in the right time it could have brought around €6-7m more into Milan’s coffers – as opposed to the reported €3m plus bonuses – which is not a mind-boggling figure.
However, what happened with the Bosnian represents an anomalous precedent, made up of contradictions and positions that ultimately saw Milan emerge defeated. Our colleagues at SempreMilan.it have broken down the matter…
The summer
To fully understand the issue we need to take a step back, or maybe two, going back to the end of last season which was certainly the most positive year Krunic played at Milan. The Bosnian midfielder had become a key element within Stefano Pioli’s team, which caused some surprise.
The former Empoli man was labelled as a ‘balancer’ between the defensive and attacking phases, so much so that it pushed Pioli to modify the 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-3, thus introducing the presence of a deeper-lying player which would be Krunic.
Ismael Bennacer’s injury obviously did the rest by pushing Krunic even further into the sphere of Pioli’s most important players, so much so that it often led commentators and experts to conceive and repeat until exhaustion the phrase: “Krunic is the only one in able to do that role so well.”
We must add to this that Krunic almost always responded to the call, making himself truly essential for this Milan who sold Tonali in the summer before acquiring not one, not two, but three midfielders: Yunus Musah, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Tijjani Reijnders.
The heat of mid-August arrived and the imponderable did too. Krunic, backed by Pioli and the management and a key part of the plans, decided that his €1.2m net per season salary was too low for a player who was a candidate to play 40 games in 2023-24.
The renewal
He asked for a pay rise, a move compliant with the rules of the market and getting fair recompense, but which was then transformed into a theatrical piece. His request for renewal was answered ‘Let’s see’ by CEO Giorgio Furlani the first time, then also the second time.
On the third occasion he brought to the meeting with the management a piece of paper with the writing ‘€3.5m net per season from Fenerbahce’ which was another twist. The reaction of the management, having recovered from the shock, was to wait for an offer to arrive at their desk.
The requests of the Turkish club were listened to, also trying to negotiate on the price (which later reached €10m) but at the same time they tried to understand together with Pioli what Krunic’s departure meant on a tactical level.
This is where the first cracks in the relationship between Milan and the Bosnian formed, given they would not sell him unless they got their price while also being unwilling to match the salary, and the cracks would only widen from there.
The mistakes
The summer passed with Krunic still at Milan despite the offers, with the same salary and no renewal signed. That was the first mistake.
The season begins along the same lines as the previous one with the Bosnian still at the centre of the project and – given Bennacer’s injury – without credible alternatives apart from the sporadic and not very consistent signs from Yacine Adli and Tommaso Pobega. Second mistake.
Untouchability, however, is a double-edged sword that glorifies you when things are going well and condemns you when the boat starts to take on water. Krunic’s performances, especially in the Champions League when the pace doubles, started to be insufficient if not downright harmful.
As the weeks passed by, Krunic seemed to be downgraded from the shelf of being an intelligent and perhaps underrated player to just being a normal part of the rotations. The third strike.
The collapse
From then on it was a vertical collapse. Krunic still had not received any truly acceptable renewal offer, which fuelled his frustration and – in the words of La Gazzetta dello Sport – caused him to ‘mentally abandon’ being a Milan player.
Fenerbahce knew things had turned sour, and so it was no longer the Turkish club’s management that were knocking on Milan’s doors, but vice versa.
Now the midfielder has the upper hand, so the €10m from Fener or €12m from Lyon that could have been obtained in the summer vanished just as quickly as the midfielder did from the rotations.
Unfortunately, Milan were left having to draw a pitiful veil on the conclusion of an outgoing operation that satisfied everyone except them.
