Milan have signed three new players and two new-old, while saying goodbye, at least temporarily, to six men.
Milan head into the January transfer market fresh off the debacle against Atalanta, in which they lost 5-0 away from home. Paolo Maldini, Zvonimir Boban and Frederic Massara acted on the mercato, realizing that some reinforcements and changes were due.
The biggest January signing is without a doubt Zlatan Ibrahimović, whose impact on the team over the last month cannot be ignored. Ibra has come on a big salary (believed to be €3m for six month) but so far the Zlatan Effect seems to be working. From the new signings, Ibra is the only guaranteed starter as veterans Simon Kjær and Asmir Begović, 20-year-old Alexis Saelemaekers and the returning Diego Laxalt will be most on the bench, or fighting with others for space.
The full list of arrivals can be found below, with the transfer fees as they were reported in the media:
| Player Name | Role | Age | Arrived From | Details (fees unconfirmed) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zlatan Ibrahimović | Forward | 38 | Free Agent | Permanent deal, six-month contract + option to renew |
| Simon Kjær | Defender | 30 | Sevilla | 6-month loan deal with option to buy for €2.5m |
| Asmir Begović | Goalkeeper | 32 | Bournemouth | 6-month loan deal |
| Alexis Saelemaekers | Forward | 20 | Anderlecht | 6-month loan deal with option to buy €7-8m, can turn into an obligation |
| Diego Laxalt | Defender | 26 | Torino | Returned from loan deal |
A few players were sent away, allowing Milan to cut some costs. Pepe Reina, who was making €3m per season, Fabio Borini, who was making €2.5m per season, and Mattia Caldara, €2.2m, have all left the club this window. Suso is also gone after four years and he will try to get his career back on track at Sevilla, while Krzysztof Piątek is off to Germany after one year in Red and Black.
| Player Name | Role | Age | Went To | Details (fees unconfirmed) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mattia Caldara | Defender | 25 | Atalanta | 18-month loan deal with option to buy for €15m |
| Pepe Reina | Goalkeeper | 37 | Aston Villa | 6-month loan deal |
| Fabio Borini | Forward | 28 | Hellas Verona | Released from contract |
| Suso | Forward | 26 | Sevilla | 18-month loan deal with option to buy for €21m, can turn into an obligation |
| Krzysztof Piątek | Forward | 24 | Hertha BSC | Permanent deal, €28m |
| Ricardo Rodríguez | Defender | 27 | PSV | 6-month loan deal, €1m |
A decent piece of business if you ask me, with the only grey area being the dashed hope of signing Dani Olma and the collapse of the Robinson deal. So far it seemed like a window that was designed to clean the house and clear the ground for the new owners. Lets hope for a pleasant end to the season and a summer of our dreams.
missing on RM and a CM will seriously hurt us in the future.
What a way to balance books. After seeing how inflential Theo, Bennacer and Ibra has been lately I’ve confidence that Maldini is the right man for the job. It’s now up to the kids and Pioli to do well. The sky is the limit.
Forza Milan, Forza Capitano.
I wish I ahared your optimism mate. There’s definitely an eye for talent in our scouting team, but building a football team is not only about gathering random talent together: 1. The vision at the beginning of the season was silly, with Giampaolo and Suso as a number 10. 2. Our most expensive purchase (Leao) is a bench player, or at the very least we got someone just as good in Rebic (albeit with different characteristics). 3. Not properly addressing the DM and CB positions. There were some good things done by mgmt as well, I think Bennaser is a… Read more »
I read piatek has already started missing chances at hertha berlin. Glad we sold him
Bro he was a one seasson wonder.
He got lazy and didnt put in the work after that seasson.
Classic partying and thinking he has acchived something.
@Nathan….so what is the meaning of your statement? Are u saying that Piatek is a bad striker ?????
Yes I’m saying he’s not a good striker. Can he become better? Sure. But he has a lot, and I mean a lot of things to work on. He’s not fast or quick and his movements are slow and predictable. Doesn’t have a good touch and can’t pass. No link up play at all and he’s physically weak. Milan needs fast strikers. We missed our chance with timo Werner. Every top team plays with a cf that has skill and speed and link up play. Only bayern play with a true target man and to an extent Benzema at Madrid.… Read more »
Nathan the fast striker with good link up play and skill you are looking for could be Alexander Isak from Real Sociedad he fits that description perfectly but he could use 2 more years to develop before being ready for to join a big club
Omar I have not seen him play. I will have to watch him tomorrow to check him out. It’s a fact the top teams all have a cf that has skill. If he isn’t fast he at least needs to have skill
Agree, with one little exception. Benzema is one of the pioneers of modern strikers in football. Have you seen him take the flank, dribble and provide assists? He has been doing that since Lyon days. I am a huge fan of him though.
Valo I agree. I thought I mentioned Benz and lewandoski. Those 2 are the true target cf in top 5 teams even
This summer, hopefully milan will sign quality players. Judging from the players linked with milan, its possible maldini and boban plan to play 4312.
GK – donnaruma brothers, IVAN QUARESMA
DC – T.SILVA, romagnoli, FOFANA, duarte, gabbia
DL – theo, laxalt
DR – conti, calabria/saelemaekers
DMC – TONALI/MORO/FLORENTINO LUIS
LCM – bennacer, paqueta
RCM – kessie/MATHEUS HENRIQUE/CASTROVILLI, krunic/pobega
AM – ZARACHO/DE PAUL, castillejo
SS – leao, rebic
SC – SCAMACCA, ibra
AC Milan have completed the signing of 17-year-old midfielder Francesco Angelini from Rimini Berretti. One for the future.
I’m just glad Robinson deal fell through… I get that Maldini thinks he has the magic touch with signing defenders after the Hernandez masterstroke, but not sure what he was thinking with that one. Saelemaekers looks promising, though. At least he knows how to make his legs move faster than Suso.
Not that i disagree with the saelemaeker comment but you really must have some really speciffic inside knowledge when you know what maldini thinks.
Robinson had potential. sad that he didnt sign.
I’m still waiting for Theo to contribute something to defense before I can call it a master stroke. A good start would be to loose the ball less frequently in our own half, or even not to try to dribble past an opponent when you’re the last man. The kid definitely has enormous talent, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sure he’s talents fit a defender currently. At least not the type we need. Currently, any formation we field must have some to constantly cover the left flank when we are in possession or the opponent is on the… Read more »
Not a very good overall transfer window in my opinion as the team pretty much got weakened but atleast we got rid of the deadbeat Suso and improved our finances accordingly to ffp. Small part of susos interview on football italia —– “I asked Milan to leave and in the last two weeks I tried not to even get called up into their squad. We put the effort in and finally I am here. —– If he is correctly quoted in the comment above it shows he has been slacking in training and pissed on milans crest. In the last… Read more »
I am certain he didn’t make that quote.
No professional player would be that stupid.
Imagine landing in a new team and saying you are a lazy deceiving whiner!
Suso has given us some fantastic moments. And some incredibly frustrating moments. Let’s just move forward.
Its not that i disagree with your assesment of just moving forward as i for one has wanted him out for several years or at max keeping him as a substitute so its not that im sorry about him leaving us but as i also previously posted the snippet below from another interview a few days ago im seriously questioning if he has been behaving profesionaly in regard of his departure. —– “Both Milan and Sevilla knew full well that my intention was to come here,” Suso told the official club website. “These were very difficult weeks, we had to… Read more »
Haha I know mate, remember Kalinic? 😛
Still I don’t think he will say that he tried not to get called up in squad purposefully in an interview.
How could i forget 😀
I sorta agree and in general im rather suspicous of all football news i read as its more the rule than the exception to be as sensational and incorrect as the tabloids but his official club site interview isnt that good for his image either so who knows whats correct or not. It would be odd for him to say that but if he infact hasnt said it i would certainly sue them for libelous statements if i was in his shoes.
We need to be less sensitive as fans for this kind of nonsense Martin; we simply don’t have the luxury to afford it. If Suso made 20-25 assists a season he can wear an Inter shirt in his spare time for all I care.
I assume you are commenting in regard of my first post, so do you really think it would be ok for our players to slack in training to not being called up, well if so then we will just have to agree on disagreeing. In regard of our players openly supporting our enemies prancing around in town in an inter shirt id say sell them as we might not be as prominent and rich as previously but we should atleast allways try to keep just a small ammount of our self respect intact.
The formation is 442 but What if Ibrahimovic gets injured, we have no backup
Im pretty confident that Luan Capanni will be lined up as a forward substitute for the remainder of the season if needed while also being an understudy to ibra. I also said it before the sale of piatek was finalized as i didnt expect us to bring in any new forwards and letting capanni learn a thing or two from ibra actually does make some sense. Both are pretty tall forwards with some strength and technical ability and an eye for goal so this actually seems like a match made in heaven that could help us in the long run.
They loaned Capanni to Catania
Ok thanks for the info Ted thats a shame as it could actually have worked well. Ive completely missed that news, did it happen in the last hours of the transfer window or something because i see no updates on transfermarkt on him being loaned out to catania.
edit: Unless it actually did happen in the last couple of hours as i initially assumed and wasnt updated there i think you are wrong as catania has loaned a different player Gabriele Capanni
This is happening when you don’t know anything about your Primavera team ! Luan Capanni is a brasilian striker, 1,90 m tall, strong and technical, signed for free from Lazio where he was given a game in serie A by Simone Inzaghi. Gabriele Capanni is italian, 1,76 m, is our youth product, a left winger, with a good dribbling, loaned at the beginning of the season at Novara, in serie C, where he played 11 games, scored one goal, but most of them as a reserve. So they decided to loan him at Catania to play more because he is… Read more »
exactly, same sur name but different players but still an honest mistake though.
My bad man, no need to bash
lol this is what happens when u scream “forza rino” too much
Milan10 If you are trying to imply that supporting gattuso even if in a jestfull manner means that not having facts correct then what kind of argument is that because ive allways been pretty clear that i also supported him from day one till he left 😛 Not that mixing up two players with the same sur names has anything to do with supporting gattuso to begin with.
lol. put it this way mate, if people want to smoke, drink or say “forza rino” or “heil hitler” or the N word then its their problems. i dont mind. but doing it too much can be some kind of addiction. and the thing about addiction is it makes u crave for those addictive stuffs, narrowing down point of views, vision and intelligence. hence, inability to recognize one of milan primavera’s most prized assets
I don’t know about you guys but this Milan winter transfer is very weird
This is very bad winter transfer. I really dont understand how come a team struggling to fight for TOP 4, but selling many of their players without better or at least adequate replacement? Balancing the book? Come on, winter transfer isnt the time for it. It meant to be a mercato for reinforcement, not for a sale. I know many of you are trying to be optimistic. But can’t you guys see it? Once one of the starting line up is injured or got suspension, then there will be no adequate back up. Suso rodriguez caldara borini piatek would be… Read more »
Thank you man I agree. We didn’t do anything this market accept get weaker. Everyone getting happy we sold suso and even though its not exactly bad we just got weaker we didn’t replace him so what did we actually lose or gain? I think some fans are too optimistic that they have a bluryy reality. If we start to see a dip in our form and we have no one to come off bench because sold them all and didn’t replace them then it’s on both Maldini and biban and these fans backing this window. Cani ask who is… Read more »
I’m not against selling mediocre players. even out of form stars. but as you see in the list, our management is not aiming for UCL this season because we didn’t sign any proper or long term replacement. our squad is tiny and we never use our youth players. we can hope that we don’t have an injury but IT’S US. We tried this young squad thing for nearly 10 years and no result. I wish we somehow go back to be the grandpa club we were. lot’s of free players in their 30 that we can sign and try. Pedro… Read more »
Honestly I’m very disappointed with the way the management steering this club. I was optimistic at first but I really don’t see where this optimism from fans is coming from. We havent spent any money at all we are not exactly doing well sitting in 8th we needed some quality midfielders and just like correa and now olmo we don’t get our man. I’m almost certain milan get purposely linked to these players so we the fans get excited but in reality milan have no intention of sinning these players because they don’t want to spend the money. It’s not… Read more »
How is it maldinis fult, that suso, piatek, chanaloolu has been out of form for 6months…..
They what was needed in this window. And milan is 8 points away from europe.
Depends. If a new managment is coming to buy the club. Then is waste of money to buy new players,rather wait and see the plans and who the new coach will be. Then you can buy the correct players for the system.
I can agree to that. That would make sense.
The issue here is Italian tax laws on player wages, which roughly double the cost of a player’s salary. For instance, Borini making 2.5 mil a year, means he costs us 5 mil. So mgmt was focused on reducing the wage budget where there’s unnecessary fat.
But we are a football team, not a bank. Let’s hope we get real reinforcements come summer.
Gazidis is still planning to buy cheap, so don’t expect a big name
I think for the right deal, even Gaizidis can be on board.
I don’t understand why we sign Alex because we already have Borini for the same role. Borini is also useful when we want to play more defensif when we are leading
Borini also had very high wages especially for a bench player thats why
Borini joined hellas verona earlier in the window and letting him go actually made us save a fair ammount of cash as he earned 2.5 mil a year before taxes and pretty sure saelemaeker wont earn that ammount. Besides of that borini had an expirring contract and the belgian is primarily a RM whereas borinis main position believe it or not was LW. Add to that that saelemaeker is young and will have a resale vaule. With taxes we will actually save 2.5 mil for half a year in regard of borini and if i remember correctly saelemaeker was brought… Read more »