Paolo Maldini’s name made headlines again earlier in the month as he decided to shed some light on his AC Milan exit in an interview given to La Repubblica.
You can read the full interview here, but as Tuttosport (via PianetaMilan) write this morning the former director was very keen to defend some of the work that he did in various transfer windows, as well as the signing of Charles De Ketelaere.
De Ketelaere was the marquee investment of the 2022 summer mercato conducted by Maldini and Massara after the Scudetto win, but he wasn’t the only player who arrived in that window and failed to help build on the success.
Aster Vranckx returned to Wolfsburg after making just nine appearances, Sergino Dest is on loan at PSV where he has found more consistent playing time after a difficult year, while Divock Origi has played just 152 minutes in the Premier League with Nottingham Forest with the great risk of a return to Milan in the summer.
Two different notes were Malick Thiaw and Yacine Adli. The German international arrived from Schalke 04 and nailed down a starting spot before his recent injury, while the Franco-Algerian at least continues to be a part of Stefano Pioli’s rotations.
Transfer market is roulette.
Americans did make some good work for Milan balance sheet, but reputation of the club depends of results on the pitch. Selling Tonali did make some good new arrival, but Milan needs mixture of young players with potential in combined with stars. Scudetto team lost many of star players, and that’s why Milan can’t compete Juventus and Inter in serie a or Newcastle and Borussia in UCL.
Milan needs young talented players not fodders as Reijnders-Musah-Chukuweze
LMAO!!! Fodders??? Would you recognize young & talented if it stared you in the face? :]
I partially disagree. I agree that player like Kessie was not adequately replaced by Maldini and Massara, and that our midfield suffered because of it last season. I agree that Furlani and Moncada failed to address the striker problem this season. But having said all that if you go back to the first games against Newcastle and Dortmund, we could have and should have won those games. We were the better side on each occasion. We should be going in to this final match day on 9 points, with Dortmund also on 9 and Newcastle on 4.
If you add Bakayoko, Ballo Toure and Florenzi who were brought in ’21 summer and were on the team last season, you end up with 8 literally useless players.
A third of the squad was absolutely useless last season and had almost no contribution at all.
But according to Paolo “Out of 35 purchases we are challenged on De Ketelaere”.
Floerenzi was brought in from cl list reasons and uefa restrictions we had at the time. Being italian and cheap its wasn’t all that bad. With the budget restrictions its wasnt all that bad. Definitely not as bad as cdk and origi.
Well if you look at the article and the picture….then I’d say yes he was only challenged on CDK (and to a lesser extent Origi) with Moncada not having any blame associated with the scouting which led to that decision. Its Maldini when it’s bad, Moncada when it’s good. If you ask the “what went wrong” question, the answer is always CDK when the true answer can’t be thatl. He literally is associated with one bad transfer but we gonna sit here and ignore the fact that most of the current squad and core are all Maldini’s: Mike, Theo, Tomori, Kjaer/Thiaw/Kalulu, Bennacer, Leao, Giroud (previously Tonali and Ibra). All we needed was the RW, A proper CAM and Kessie’s replacement. All the other guys are complementary/squad pieces: Florenzi, Baka , Krunic etc. You have to remember this squad was built over a period of time. When Maldini arrived it coincided with the arrivals of Theo and Co, it was year zero; they cleared out all the old guys like Strnic, Bertolacci, Montolivo and so on. This takes time Some pieces added were hits, others were misses as is always the case in football. Even you yourself said it, we needed to give these guys more time…new country, league, environment etc instead of criticizing early on. Dest? Vranckx? Right?!
But the fact remains that for the current management it’s easier to do what they did because they had a solid core to start off with thanks to Maldini and Massara. That somehow is always lost in the mix. Maldini and Massara had to start from scratch and the budget was much more limited than what we have now. Its much easier to add the more quality pieces now than it was back then.
Very well said – especially the last paragraph. What are the chances to hear an answer about it? 🙂
This just shows how wrong the entire discussion is: somehow the forest (an arguably very successful, winning, young project) is forgotten and we focus on one branch (CDK, maybe Origi) not even a tree.
In the end, that’s the sad, the worrying part. Without realizing it, we saw the entire project being cancelled.
💯 correct @IKWYDLS.
Still can’t believe how many haters on here cherry picking facts to bash a club legend when all he did was help take us from obscurity back to relevance. That should be respected. He’s gone now so we move on. As we have seen just this past summer – some transfers are good and some are bad. NOBODY gets every transfer right. Context also matters as @IKWYDLS pointed out. MOVE ON.
Still better then spending 130 millions and not passing CL group stage, struggle to finish 4th in Serie A, while your most expensive acqusition of the summer is more of a miss.
Some people can’t stop exaggerating about how much Milan spent in total or for a player.
130 mil is actually 115 mil.
Some dude yesterday said Chukwueze cost Milan 35 mil.
No, he cost only 20 mil with 8 mil in bonuses which aren’t guaranteed and are based on individual or team accomplishments.
Chukwueze has already surpassed CDK contributions.
Milan is also not in struggle to finish top 4 at all even though half of their squad is injured and they haven’t played that well.
They are as close to winning the scudetto as they are from struggling to finish top 4.
And when it comes to the UCL group. If the team didn’t finish 4th(5th) last season and Milan wasn’t the lowest seed in the group stage because of that maybe they wouldn’t have ended up in the group of death.
How did Milan do in 2021 when they were also drawn in group of death?
Hoping Milan fails will not make you feel better or bring Maldini back.
Hey you’re the one bringing up Maldini’s 22/23 season out of his 5 years at helm where he bought us Scudetto winning team with close to no budget. It’s really unfortunate for you, Gerry boys that this new management’s first season is already in shambles. We’re already behind in points compared to last season when we barely made it to CL spots (also due to luck).
And I don’t need to support the management to support the team. Learn and understand the distinguishment.
Well, we would’ve had more of a budget if he didn’t let all of our valuable assets leave for free. Calhanoglu, Donnarumma, Kessie…
Add to that the Bakayoko, Ballo-Toure, Dest, Vranckx, Origi, CDK signings that did absolutely nothing, as well as the fact that they didn’t address the RW problem for 3 years, and there are plenty of reasons for the sacking.
Oh sorry I forgot Vranckx, Ballo-Toure, Origi and CdK were exclusively Maldini’s scouting and signings while the likes of Bennacer, Theo, Maignan, Tomori, Tonali were Moncada’s.
This @🔴⚫️ is a proper clown LOL. Walking contradiction. We get it buddy – Fulani is a boy genius correct on every transfer and built Milan to what we are today and Maldini & Madera did nothing LOL. Does that about sum it up for you kid?? Move on son, move on
The article brought up the 22 summer, not me.
That’s the issue with some here. You don’t even read the articles but you just go straight to the comment section to argue.
we weren’t the lowest seed for finishing 4th. It’s based on coefficient for several years and for a long time we didn’t even qualify.
You’re right! Some people here who call themselves AC Milan fans are hoping that Milan failed to reach top 4 in Series A and don’t make final 16th Champions league just to be happy and prove that Maldini was the savior of Milan. Whatever you wish for and do can’t bring him back to the Club because he failed and try to shift the blame on other!
Where’s the wish? I miss the part where I wish they fail. Difference is I won’t be so disappointed if they do apart from some who were saying Scudetto is ours already in August.
Struggle to finish top 4? MILAN ARE VERY CLEAR AT 3rd you nonce
last season Milan finished 5th but you gonna pretend it was 4th instead huh?
idiot
News flash bimbo, we are already trailing behind last season in points.
Go watch some more of that football kush or whatever the name of that so called youtube expert you so dearly worship.
Who’s going to pay for the mistakes of summer 23? 😂
Pioli probably
I guess none will change opinion on this debate.
But it’s naive to say that one campaign was the reason to fire him. All the signs (and there are plenty) are there for everyone to see: Maldini was not wanted from day 1. The rest is a convenient narrative.
And mind that this is the positive point of view for Gerry. Because only a childish owner without any knowledge of the sport would fire an overall very successful director for few unsuccessful transfers during a single summer (not even one full campaign). Gerry isn’t like that, right?
You’re right! Some people here who call themselves AC Milan fans are hoping that Milan failed to reach top 4 in Series A and don’t make final 16th Champions league just to be happy and prove that Maldini was the savior of Milan. Whatever you wish for and do can’t bring him back to the Club because he failed and try to shift the blame on other!