It has been a strange few months for Rade Krunic, who has slid from having a position as a starting player in Stefano Pioli’s side to now being seemingly destined for the exit.
There was some doubt about Krunic’s position in the squad at the end of last season given that the decision was made to shift to a 4-3-3 formation. While the Bosnian had played as a mezzala, a playmaker, a winger and even as a false nine, Pioli had something different in mind.
Fenerbahce came knocking and tried to use compatriot Edin Dzeko to launch a charm offensive in order to sign Krunic, but the head coach reportedly vetoed the exit while the Turkish side never offered a satisfactory sum to make the management reconsider.
The Milan boss decided to put the former Empoli man quite literally at the centre of his plans, given that he made him the starting defensive midfielder leaving him with the double task of breaking up play in the non-possession phase and helping build-up when on the ball.
Struggles begin
It was a tall order for a player who had previously had a bit-part role as a ‘jack of all trades’ type figure, and after an injury sustained against Hellas Verona it was time for Yacine Adli to be tried in a deeper role, and his rollercoaster deserves a separate analysis.
Krunic’s situation worsened, starting with the fact that he was not even sent out to warm up on Saturday during the win over Frosinone and remained on the bench for the entire match.
The Bosnian, since the international break, played for six minutes against Fiorentina in the league and 37 minutes against Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League. Simply put, he seems to have lost his centrality in the project that he had at the beginning of the season.
Krunic, who joined Milan in 2019 from Empoli for €8m, had been one of Pioli’s loyalists. Last season, he made 25 appearances in all competitions scoring three goals, but only nine of those starts came in the league.
The fact is that even his better outings as a defensive midfielder were nothing to write home about, but he was capable of disastrous performances such as the one in the Champions League in Paris against PSG.
This lack of consistency that has also slowly destabilised Pioli’s hierarchies and in the last few games he has even preferred Tijjani Reijnders over Krunic, or even Adli as mentioned who seemed destined to leave in the summer.
Calls from Turkey
It is precisely for this reason that the ears of Fenerbahce have pricked up again. They had reached an agreement with the player over a contract worth €3.5m net per season and are expected to come back in for the 31-year-old, which gives Milan a second chance.
The latest indications suggest that the Istanbul-based club would have to pay around €10m to sign Krunic in January, but they will of course aim to take advantage of the fact that his contract will expire in the summer of 2025.
At the moment his role at Milan is clearly under discussion especially after Pioli’s recent decisions to exclude him from the starting line-up, while another factor is that renewal talks are proving difficult because of the high demands from the player’s side.
Rade Krunic's 2022-23 Serie A numbers compared to Nicolas Dominguez and Marko Grujic (the two main targets).
The data in order: average rating out of 10, games played, goals, assists, key passes per 90, passes completed per 90 and balls recovered per 90.
[via @Gazzetta_it] pic.twitter.com/aytbHvaHOj
— MilanData📊 (@acmilandata) August 13, 2023
It was reported right at the end of the summer window that Lyon had also scouted Krunic and even presented an offer worth €12-13m, yet that was rejected partly because it fell below the amount Milan wanted but mostly because of the lack of time to replace him.
However, the considerations on Krunic in the upper levels of Casa Milan now seem to have changed radically and January could see his four-and-a-half year spell at the club end.
Milan’s regret
Looking back, Giorgio Furlani and co. might just wish they could change how things went in August. The midfield could lose Ismael Bennacer (again) as the Algerian returned from his injury but is expected to be called up by Algeria for the African Cup of Nations which start on January 13th.
This is a factor that must be in Pioli’s mind given he would thus find himself with a real void in the control room, if Krunic were also to be sold. Precisely in this sense, the sale of Krunic for €10m will force Milan to reinvest what they earned for the purchase of another midfielder.
There is talk of Assan Ouédraogo of Schalke who has a €12m release clause, yet he is believed to prefer the idea of staying in Germany until the summer so another target might be needed. The search for a replacement could end up leaving other sensitive areas uncovered too; gaps in the squad that were not filled in the summer.
January, being in the middle of the season, is not an excellent time to do business and for this very reason the failure to sell Krunic in the summer represents something Milan might just be reflecting on. Of course timing and offers received are the main factor, but now this could become a real headache.
This whole debacle captures everything that’s wrong with modern football.
Where to begin?
A player who played a CRUCIAL role in Milan’s resurgence and Scudetto win is written off by the media and therefore fans.
Yes, he was CRUCIAL.
His arrival coincided with our revival, he’s played 139 times in the 200 or so matches that Milan played in total during that time.
He played in nearly every game in our Scudetto winning season (28 appearances where he missed 5 games through injury) and started every game in our champions league run last.
Seriously – what the f*%k do people think he’s doing out there?
Do people seriously think Milan achieved this with 10 men (less however many other players get written off during this period from Calabria to Saelemaekers)?
Not only do people not rate him they HATE him.
They HATE a player who had played a CRUCIAL part of our rival (as well as the manager whose achievements get discounted due to the ‘fluke’ of the Scudetto and Ibrahimovic).
At its crux this shows a total lack of appreciation and ability to enjoy the moment. All hidden behind a misguided sense of ‘ambition’.
Because that is what the Krunic debate is about. One set of ‘fans’ with big ideas about what it ‘takes’ to win titles whilst ignoring what it ‘took’.
These big ideas come from an absolute obsession with the transfer market, with the need for constant change, new signings (any signings).
Players who finished 16th in La Liga are celebrated over players who finished 4th in Serie A and reached the semi-finals of the champions league.
The retort – ‘that’s all in the past’.
What, yesterday?
A few months ago is not in the past in the sense that it sets the foundations for the CURRENT squad to build on.
The people who are living in the past are the people who imagine that any of the Milan Greats in the past could have survived the modern era.
The Greats became Great because they were left alone to become Great. You don’t become Great overnight. It takes years.
So these so called ‘fans’ both managed to s*%t on the achievements of the current squad and the achievements of the past.
But the other part to this is of course Krunic’s greed. Not that he can really be blamed for favouring money over an ungrateful club and set of fans, but it becomes hard to defend.
Like with all this it’s not just about Krunic. It’s about nobody being satisfied, nobody staying put, no team, no soul, and as often the case, no trophies.
We’re left with nothing to show for any of this.
We’ve probably taken a step backwards this season despite all of the fanfare this summer. The actual Scudetto winning team has been dismantled. It’s only a matter of time before Pioli gets sacked. And for what?
So here’s my thoughts:-
Yes, some people are really critical of Krunic but apart from those so-called fans (trolls) everyone has appreciated his contribution for the club (not the most important player in our team aka Tomori, but still a good team player). He also had a good start to this season, but the issue is, is he a player for the future. At 30 years of age, he has only a few years left at top level before his body gives up, given he is a midfielder. We received a good offer of 12M for him, which was blocked by Pioli. He is not a DM, and we had a chance to replace him with an actual DM, but we didn’t thank to Pioli. People just give him too much hate because of this, when he didn’t even want to stay here.
Well considering Costacurta was still playing for us at 41……as a left back!
What are we going to do with the 12m or whatever?
What did we do with the Tonali money?
Every transfer is disruptive. Sure some (but certainly not most) transfers can improve sides but even those will have downsides.
A football team or squad is a set of human beings.
If you’re at a party and someone else joins there’s less food and drink to go round, it disrupts the chemistry, it changes things.
I am not against change but we need to recognise that not all change is good, and therefore needs to be focused and balanced.
Why are you comparing him from Costacurta? Krunic doesn’t even want to stay and you think we should give him a 5 year contract and triple his salary. His preferred place is Fenerbache not here in Milan also now there are 3 midfielders in the team who are above him in the Peking order.
Hey everybody, Maldini’s Heir is back with the same sentimental BS post about how we should keep all of our players forever and new signings are bad. Never mind the fact that our new signing Pulisic has been arguably our best player this season and save the team many times already. Or how RLC has been our best midfielder. If only we had Saleamakers and Bakayoko back…
Krunic started only 15 of the games in the Scudetto season and honestly the record when he did was not that good. Just like this season. He played even more minutes last season and the result was 5th plave finish, In fact you there is a correlation. The more minutes Krunic plays, the worst the team does. Just check out the record this season when Krunic starts. They drop points almost every time he does. In fact the last win Milan had when he started was back in September. Even Pioli has had to face that fact now that his job is on the line. So thank him for his service, shed a tear if you want, but the team will be better off without him. The only regret is that they didn’t sell him in the summer. It cost us money and points.
There’s very little point in responding to you other than to say we’ll see where we end up this season.
And no doubt even if we finish in a worst position you’ll still be adamant that the squad is so much better.
It seems your ‘ambition’ doesn’t actually mean winning titles.
Don’t even bother. Its not worth the time or effort.
You keep screaming for a few pages that he’s ESSENTIAL and CRITICAL
Unfortunately, you gave 0 reasons why you believe this.
If that you’re that confident, surely you have a few statistics to back up your claims and if he’s as good and essential as you say that he is, you should have no problem finding a handful of key stats or areas that he leads in compared to similar caliber players.
Oh, yeah, facts. Those pesky things get in the way for you a lot.
How is a Scudetto win not an important statistic?
Stats? Oh that’s easy. I’ll help you out. Based on fbref for 2022-23 domestic league only to keep it consistent (as Dominguez didn’t play European competition last year) and as per the comparison in the article (which the analysis haven’t really made sense):
Krunic has the lowest dispossessiom rate while in possession, lowest miscontrol rate while in possession, lowest tackled rate, lowest error rate, most successful take ons, highest blocked shots, highest blocked passes, highest goal creating actions, highest pass completion rate, and highest progressive carries compared to Grujic and Dominguez.
Krunic also has a better recovery rate, kclearance rate, interception rate and aerial duels won over Dominguez.
There! Compared to his peers 😁
How about his own team? He also has the most points per match last year too for players with at least 5 games🤷♂️
His +/- (at +17) is only bettered by Theo, Leao and Tomori.
What else? Lol
Now that it’s coming true the Krunic supporters are really coming unhinged. The only real stat that matters is that Milan don’t win when he plays. September 23rd was the last time Milan won a game that Krunic started. It’s now December. Even when he comes off the bench now it’s the kiss of death as it was against Juventus and then against Dortmund. Even Pioli has had to face these facts now.
According to your logic, we must keep all players who won scudetto no matter what, right? Do you ever listen to yourself? You are living in delusional world. Are you from one of those totalitarian country like North Korea, Iran or any central Asian countries? It’s like somebody became a president and country became good for a year or two and you automatically think that this president should stay as a president forever. Do you see your pattern? A player can play good for certain amount of time, and when player is not living up to expectation, you sell the player and sign a player who is BETTER NOW. Quit playing FIFA for good. Real Madrid was beast with Cristiano and so does Barca with Pessi. So according to your dumbass brain, do they have return Pessi and Ronaldo to win UCL????
There is no hate on Krunic, he WANTS to go and make money, period. Let him go. He is not that guy to negotiate any amount of money with Milan.
This whole debacle captures everything that’s wrong with modern football.
Where to begin?
A player who played a CRUCIAL role in Milan’s resurgence and Scudetto win is written off by the media and therefore fans.
Yes, he was CRUCIAL.
His arrival coincided with our revival, he’s played 139 times in the 200 or so matches that Milan played in total during that time.
He played in nearly every game in our Scudetto winning season (28 appearances where he missed 5 games through injury) and started every game in our champions league run last.
Seriously – what do people think he’s doing out there?
Do people seriously think Milan achieved this with 10 men (less however many other players get written off during this period from Calabria to Saelemaekers)?
Not only do people not rate him they HATE him.
They HATE a player who had played a CRUCIAL part of our rival (as well as the manager whose achievements get discounted due to the ‘fluke’ of the Scudetto and Ibrahimovic).
At its crux this shows a total lack of appreciation and ability to enjoy the moment. All hidden behind a misguided sense of ‘ambition’.
Because that is what the Krunic debate is about. One set of ‘fans’ with big ideas about what it ‘takes’ to win titles whilst ignoring what it ‘took’.
These big ideas come from an absolute obsession with the transfer market, with the need for constant change, new signings (any signings).
Players who finished 16th in La Liga are celebrated over players who finished 4th in Serie A and reached the semi-finals of the champions league.
The retort – ‘that’s all in the past’.
What, yesterday?
A few months ago is not in the past in the sense that it sets the foundations for the CURRENT squad to build on.
The people who are living in the past are the people who imagine that any of the Milan Greats in the past could have survived the modern era.
The Greats became Great because they were left alone to become Great. You don’t become Great overnight. It takes years.
So these so called ‘fans’ both managed to dismiss the achievements of the current squad and the achievements of the past.
But the other part to this is of course Krunic’s greed. Not that he can really be blamed for favouring money over an ungrateful club and set of fans, but it becomes hard to defend.
Like with all this it’s not just about Krunic. It’s about nobody being satisfied, nobody staying put, no team, no soul, and as often the case, no trophies.
We’re left with nothing to show for any of this.
We’ve probably taken a step backwards this season despite all of the fanfare this summer. The actual Scudetto winning team has been dismantled. It’s only a matter of time before Pioli gets sacked. And for what?
For a better future
Well Krunic himself wants to leave so what do you want ? Give him 3-3,5M per year ? Great now how you deal with other players asking for a raise ?
Also it’s a FACT that Krunic this season, especially since his injury has been in fact quite bad. It’s quite understandable that any coach will start favoring other players if those are performing better than him. Krunic probably wants more playing time but that’s simply not gonna happen.
Do you want to FORCE the coach to start him every game, because supposedly he was better few years ago ? His mind is clearly somewhere else and I think better performing players should start.
Yea I get what you’re saying MH. But we’re sort of living a different world these days in terms of the club being able to keep its players. In our glory days Silvio bankrolled the team and was able to hold on to players. But the way things are going with the club, we’ll be a high turnover club in order to be self sustaining with “selling at the right time” being the mantra. The owners are less concerned about winning with a stable team and more about making the UCL (to get the money) by any means necessary. And with that comes with the changes. Besides, changes can be good especially if it’s to provide competition for our starters. But I hate to see a good team player go
Well Krunic himself wants to go, so what do you want to do about that ? And his wage demands are too high considering our current cap.
Krunic also as a player lost his starting position, his performances regressed, he seems to be mentally affected and even pioli doesn’t rely on him as much as before.
I’d rather let him go for a good price rather than lose him for free.
Of course, that means we should ABSOLUTELY go for a DM in january.
Which crucial role, please? I remember our midfield during the scudeto season was mainly Benna, Kessie, and Diaz.
Yes he came on as a sub at intervals. So what exactly was crucial?
Krunic often played as an “AM” in 21/22, because Diaz was so unreliable. Bennacer, Tonali and Kessie alternated in the DM position.
I agree with Maldini’s heir in that there should be no place for Krunic hate, and that it was inspired by the media.
And I also agree with the rest of the folks that because of players like Krunic that helped bring us out of the hole, we are now in a position where he is just not good enough for this team. That is Pioli’s main accomplishment, bringing this team to a level where even he and some of the players that helped him are now in doubt. It is an amazing problem that was almost impossible to forsee after the Atalanta debacle. The future is bright.
There’s a fundamental contradiction that a player could BOTH have played a part in bringing us back from the brink AND not be good enough for the level he helped us return to…
We get this constantly with so and so not being ‘good enough’ when so and so is an actual, verifiable Scudetto winner.
People’s completely subjective opinion of a player is given more weight than what actually occurred.
Now sure, teams must improve, and we needed to build on that Scudetto winning side and return to the top. But the teams at the top tend have had players who have played at the clubs for YEARS.
Man City, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, PSG and even Dortmund have players playing for them for 5-10 years.
So for me it’s the reverse. Krunic needed to stay at the club to KEEP us at the level. Maybe not as a starter but as a continuity.
Now he’s probably gone which is the other part of my post.
Players who have left Milan (and stopped us returning to the top) have left for three reasons:
a) random, inexplicable transfers;
b) greed;
AND
c) because they were not good enough.
My gripe is with a) and b).
Do you actually think Krunic improves this current Milan team? The problem isn’t only that when he’s on the pitch he’s not very effective. It’s also the fact that he’s taking the spot of an alternative player who could actually help the entire team play better. Plus he’d be taking development time from younger players who would benefit from getting those minutes on the pitch in.
Addition by subtraction is a real thing, and I think it applies in this situation.
In some weird way he’s right though. Look at what happened over the summer. We spent 113million, changed almost the entire midfield only to be in the exact same position or worse last year. Matter of fact we have the same or less in output in terms of goals as we did last year 🤷♂️..sooooo the what was the point of the wholesale changes? Like Puli is great don’t get me wrong but apart from him, not much anyone else is making a contribution to goals. Addition by subtraction is a thing and so too subtraction by addition it seems 😅
“In some weird way he’s right though. Look at what happened over the summer. We spent 113million, changed almost the entire midfield only to be in the exact same position or worse last year. Matter of fact we have the same or less in output in terms of goals as we did last year 🤷♂️..sooooo the what was the point of the wholesale changes? Like Puli is great don’t get me wrong but apart from him, not much anyone else is making a contribution to goals. Addition by subtraction is a thing and so too subtraction by addition it seems 😅”
Well… You forgot that Benny has been out. Add Benny to the narrative and Milan will perform much better. You’ll see.
@bb I did the analysis in terms of the new signings vs all the players that departed. It makes most sense to do it this way as it shows direct comparison in terms of loss/gain. Took the goal contributions and divided by 3 for both sets (as we’re about a third way through) and turns out we’re pretty much the same as last year. I think people underestimate Diaz and Messias goal contributions because they don’t like their styles (I dont either but I do give them their credit). So Benny’s impact in this case doesn’t matter. Not saying we can’t make changes (RW after all I prefer Puli but I do think one of Messias or Saele could have been kept instead of spending 28m on a sub).
The guy always had a great attitude and, and that’s about the positive that can be said of him.
Milan will be such a better team without him. It’s just a real shame to think what could have happened if Pioli had not developed a sick obsession with him. But better late than never cheer up Milanistas beautiful days lie ahead now that we will be playing with 11 professional players.
He’s such a bum haha look at you guys crying about him. He belongs in MLS, straight garbage. Everyone who said he wasn’t that guy at the beginning of the season was proven right.
Hope they get rid of the absolutely worst player to wear Milan’s jersey lately (only behind Castillejo) just sell him to whoever offers a penny and don’t look back. He is dead last in our midfielders actual talent (Bennacer, Reijnders, RLC, Musah, Pobega, the water boy’s grandma, homeless guy outside the stadium, Kruninho)
” Last season, he made 25 appearances in all competitions scoring three goals, but only nine of those starts came in the league.” Yes but those starts were closer to the end of the season and ended up playing better than Bennacer eventually benching him. He helped us out big time vs Napoli And I certainly won’t forget those games. Also, the stats provided are incorrect. Krunic had 34 appearances last season, 23 in Serie A (with 18 of those being starts, 5 as sub) and 11 in the UCL (9 as starts and 2 as a sub), according to transfermarkt and I also cross checked. He actually played and started most of the games in the UCL for us last season. We lost only 3 with him as a starter last year in the league. So his form coming into this season was actually good.
“Looking back, Giorgio Furlani and co. might just wish they could change how things went in August. ” Well this is hindsight isn’t it? And we wouldn’t know how well the team would performed had he not been there. That’s the dilemma. It isn’t an automatic “better”. And besides all directors have this problem. Our former director whose name is a curse word around these parts might just wish he had Botman now wouldn’t he?
“he was capable of disastrous performances such as the one in the Champions League in Paris against PSG” herein lies the problem I have with false narratives continually being perpetuated. Like I don’t mind saying he’s not the same player after his injury (it happens/can happen) or he had a bad game where clearly he was at fault or performed poorly (I did mention that in a few of his more recent games). But vs PSG? C’mon. Last time I checked Musah and his socks, Adli and Reinjders all did worse vs PSG or should I say vs a 17 yrs old Zaire emery as they all directly caused us to be scored upon by their actions.
Anyways before I go off on a tangent, main point was dude gets hated Imo unfairly. He’s a very capable backup and right now we’re missing the starter for his position. Good squad players are hard to come by.
The graphic/tweet doesn’t make sense from Milan Data. It says Krunic played 34 games last season (“Serie A numbers) when he played only 23 domestically as per my comment above. If you think about it, it’s hard pressed to think he’d play 34 out of the 38 games. Perhaps they meant in all competitions as that would total the 34 but for the others it didn’t really add up that way. Grujic played 24 domestically and Dominguez 31 games. Based on fbref for 2022-23, UCL and domestic, the numbers are about the same as in the graphic but if we only include domestic surprisingly the numbers diverge a bit more and each of them have their own attributes.eg Krunic would be better are per 90 recoveries but lag in number of passes per 90 compared to Grujic and Dominguez. I must say though and I said this in the summer, Grujic has incredible stats as a midfielder. His numbers are amongst the absolute best.
Instead of writting an analysis here, let’s just say he is in my opinion a bit of a puzzle, I persinally think one of luckiest people alive to wear our jersey. He belonged in a history before he even started. Time to cut the losses, football is a shrude business, and to win you need just that.
Time to move on, even someone from primavera deserves more minutes then him
Pioli, find a new boyfriend please
I really feel for Krunic. He’s been thrown all around the pitch and did a decent job before ultimately finding consistency and form as a defensive midfielder, only to lose all three players he excelled with. I’ve been saying it since the Inter game, the players around him aren’t as good as those we had last season. If he gets the chance, you will see a difference with him playing alongside Bennacer.
Krunic played an important role in the Scudetto and the CL run. It is fair to say we need a better player to consistently challenge for the Scudetto and CL but that’s not the direction the new owners seem to be taking the team. So far (and I hope this changes), we are looking like pre-Arteta Arsenal and post-Klopp Dortmund
Krunic at best is the brocchi, poli etc type of player – a back up who is willing to play anywhere required when necessary and not complain about being on the bench most of the time. Every successfull team needs this type of players.
This season it’s not his fault that bennacer is injured or pioli prefers him as the regista. As an employee, its your responsibility to do the job you are paid for. If he is to leave Milan, so be it. But as long as he remains a Milan player, every fan should learn to respect and support all our players