Milan have signed six new players (some of them on pure loan deals) and three new-old, while saying goodbye, at least temporarily, to 12 men.
The Rossoneri went into the transfer market after finishing the 2019/20 season on a high. Paolo Maldini and Frederic Massara were given the task of strengthening the squad of Stefano Pioli but at the same time had an extremely limited budget to work with and had to invest carefully.
The biggest signing – and the one that cost the club the most money – is without a doubt that of Sandro Tonali. The Italian arrived from Brescia on loan with option to buy and he’ll give Pioli important options in midfield. Tonali is joined by Brahim Díaz and Diogo Dalot who arrived on loan, while Pierre Kalulu, Ciprian Tătăruşanu and Jens Petter Hauge came on permanent deals.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pierre Kalulu | Defender | 20 | Lyon | Permanent deal, five-year contract, €0.5m |
| Alexis Saelemaekers | Forward | 21 | Anderlecht | Permanent deal (bought-out after loan), four-year contract, €7-8m |
| Simon Kjær | Defender | 31 | Sevilla | Permanent deal (bought-out after loan), two-year contract, €3.5m |
| Brahim Díaz | Forward | 21 | Real Madrid | Loan deal |
| Sandro Tonali | Midfielder | 20 | Brescia | Loan (€10m) + option (€15m + €10m bonuses) + 15% of a future resale |
| Ciprian Tătăruşanu | Goalkeeper | 34 | Lyon | Permanent deal, three-year contract, €0.5m |
| Ante Rebić | Forward | 27 | Eintracht Frankfurt | Permanent deal (bought-out after loan), five-year contract, undisclosed |
| Jens Petter Hauge | Forward | 20 | Bodø/Glimt | Permanent deal, five-year contract, €4m |
| Diogo Dalot | Defender | 21 | Manchester United | Loan deal |
Milan also sent away some players: Suso and André Silva are staying at Sevilla and Eintracht Frankfurt permanently, while Ricardo Rodríguez and Lucas Paquetá were sold, and some of the players left on loan or due to the end of their contracts (or released from their deals).
The full list of exits can be found below, with the transfer fees as they were reported in the media:
| Player Name | Role | Age | Went To | Details (fees unconfirmed) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lucas Biglia | Midfielder | 34 | Fatih Karagümrük | End of contract |
| Giacomo Bonaventura | Midfielder | 31 | Fiorentina | End of contract |
| Asmir Begović | Goalkeeper | 33 | Bournemouth | End of loan deal |
| Suso | Forward | 26 | Sevilla | Permanent deal (bought-out after loan), €21m |
| Ricardo Rodríguez | Defender | 28 | Torino | Permanent deal, €3m + bonuses |
| Pepe Reina | Goalkeeper | 38 | Lazio | Permanent deal, released from contract |
| Marco Brescianini | Midfielder | 20 | Virtus Entella | Loan deal |
| André Silva | Forward | 24 | Eintracht Frankfurt | Permanent deal, undisclosed |
| Tommaso Pobega | Midfielder | 21 | Spezia | Loan deal + option to buy + buy-back clause |
| Lucas Paquetá | Midfielder | 23 | Lyon | Permanent deal, €20m + %15 of a future resale |
| Alen Halilović | Midfielder | 24 | Free Agent | Contract terminated by mutual consent |
| Diego Laxalt | Defender | 27 | Celtic | Loan deal |
We didn’t sign CB, nor back-up for Kessie. CB is the biggest let down: Kabak, Rudiger, Fofana, Ruben Dias… we didn’t sign even one of them. We didn’t get rid of Conti, Duarte, Laxalt, or Halilovic. Good beginning but a weak ending.
I guess you didn’t read that Halinovic’s contract is been terminated
It happened just now, I wrote the comment 3 hours ago, Laxalt also left on dry loan. And it still doesn’t change the fact that was a sloppy ending to the mercato. CB was a must but we are in a delusional state where we think we can sign Romagnoli’s parter for just 12M or less.
We dont need a CB. Roma will be back soon and we have Gabbia, Duarte & Mussa. It means we have 5 CB. We have a back up for Kessie and Bennacer. We have Tonali and Krunic. The only player that does not have any back up is Ibra and no world class player would accept to be his bench warmer.
Stop nagging. The team that played amazingly im the final phase lf last season got even stronger with the addition great young signings. This isn’t football manager or FIFA that you can buy a whole team in one summer.
Duarte and Mussachio? they have never played well in Milan’s jersey, I have 0 faith in them. we have 3 CBs, Romagnoli, Kjaer and inexperienced Gabbia(who is getting better and better every game), but we still need a CB partner for the captain.
Why do we forget so easily ,mussachio has been good alongside romagnoli ,and he has always done his best before the injury stuff
We haven’t addressed some depth in certain positions, that’s true – but for me the biggest upset is not addressing the main issues with our starting 11.
businesswise, this was a good mercato because milan made profit. sportswise though, milan could’ve done much better, considering the opportunities that could’ve been seized. personally, i would keep andriy silva and get fofana/todibo, de paul and baka. but whats done is done. besides, i think milan squad is competitive as it is. not for scudetto yet perhaps but at least for top 4 finish. the way eldiott and nazidis handle this mercato, i can only think of 2 possibilities: 1) they want to stop the financial “bleeding” by putting on “tourniquet”, or 2) eldiott are selling soon and they want… Read more »
Every word true. I have also the same opinion. We could have done much mich better. I didnt knew that Japanese defender from Bologna much and saw some videos but that would have been a very good partner to roma 20 or 25 mil almost the same. We could have sold musa or duarte or both in winter and we would have been financial ok. Also dont understand why we loaned Pogeba to Spezia (hope i wrote his name corectly) without a proper backup. Dont trust Krunic much, he missed a lot of games.
PS sorry for my bad english
oh come on mate, ur english is fine, better than mine perhaps. i have been following tomiyasu for a while now and he’d be perfect kjaer’s back up and understudy. not for 25m though, 15m – 18m would be fair. regarding krunic, he’s not a dm and it showed vs spezia. spezia players had too much space to attack milan box in 1st half and it could’ve been dangerous had the attackers been world class of papu gomez’s or alexis sanchez’s calibre. krunic is cm who’s supposed to fill in rcm role in giamfanculo’s 4-3-1-2. pobega definitely should’ve stayed yeah.… Read more »
Fully agree, especially on the last part. As I also said, it’s looks very likely to me as well that Milan will have new owners until next summer. There was a clear pattern this summer and that was to shift any possible cost to next summer.
well the next mercato begins in 3 months and we could be ok in the mean time, especially when we have no Coppa Italia games, and Europe League group stage will be easy: Celtics, Lille, and Sparta. The only hard games we will be playing this year are vs Inte, Napoli, Lazio.
We won’t be signing anyone in January except if it’s a loan guaranteed. When was the last time we spent any money
Last winter. Paqueta and Piatek. Almost 70 Mil.
that was a year and a half ago
I wonder. We only sell and ask for soft or dry loan
correctamundo mate. i believe the buyers and eldiott are still working under the radar to close deal as we speak
They bought a lot of youth player and they take some time to ripe. The owner is staying, mate
milan didnt just buy young and ready players like alphonso davies or mckennie; they bought lots of primavera players, younger but unready players for the future. thats admirable, yes but those players wont bloom until next 3-4 years at least. can/will eldiott really hold onto milan that long? i highly doubt it. l could understand if milan offered respectable amount of money for players like rudiger, baka, fofana etc but got outbid anyway by epl clubs but it seems like they dont even try. 15m for 30m rated fofana, 8m for 20m rated simakan. thats ridiculous and borderline pathetic. if… Read more »
The pandemic really had an effect on clubs
Imagine Madrid had to let James Rodriguez leave for free, letting Bale leave also. from both players they saved almost 20m euros in salary, Milan plan to retain most of the players on loan if they perform well. The only clubs that did most on the transfer was Chelsea nd they where unable to make transfers for two windows or so.
We have one the richest owners in the world of football, if not the richest, who actually made money in this crises. You mentioned Chelsea who went all in, but there are many others who had a great market like Everton (Allen, James, ect…) and Napoli (80 mil striker). Unfortunately, we are not one of these teams.
yes the pandemic had and still have effect on pretty much everyone on the planet, including us president but thats weak reason to be pragmatic in mercato. first of all, bale and james the benchwarmers and zidane’s enemies were always gonna leave, covid or not. madrid werent spending because they just bought hazard last year and are saving for mbappe. milan arent saving for anyone in the future. chelsea spent big because, like u said, their transfer ban have just been lifted and they had cumulative funds not used in previous 2 mercatos. also, they got 150m from hazard sale.… Read more »
It’s hard to read Elliot – I agree that this mercato feels like they want to dump us in the soonest possible, but the whole stadium issue makes me feel otherwise. All and all, I agree with your general assessment – that businesswise this mercato was cleverly done, sportswise not very much. Too bad we’re competing in seria a and not in wallstreet.
correctamundo mate. to be honest, i envy juve, inter and napoli who have passionate owners willing to spend to stengthen their already strong squads. if milan cant even dry loan baka and rudiger because of 2.5m salary cap then we know who’s to blame for this disappointing mercato
All it takes is 1 injury to either Zlatan Hakan Kessie Theo Kjaer Romagnoli and Milan are in big trouble… Very bad decision not to sign anyone else this will come back to haunt us mark my words
hopefully we’ve done enough to get us to January. Then we can reassess. Maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t panic buy anyone at the last minute who might not be a good fit for us. It is disappointing that we didn’t make any signings that will immediately improve our starting 11. ( except for maybe brahim).
And Hauge maybe
Your wasting your time. Milan won’t spend any money in January. We sold suso and didn’t even use any of that money. We sold paqueta along with other players and spent nothing this window. What makes you think we will spen any money in January.
We didn’t panic buy because we never intended to buy anyone at all to begin with. We were never supposed to get our targets just were smoke screens to get the fans to stay quiet and it worked.
It was a weird period anyways for everyone. Very few teams made big changes. Having virtually no preparation time was a factor. The positive thing for Milan was that for the first time in years, there was a team, a core there. Reinforcements were needed because there is limited depth but at least the starting 11 is pretty strong. Financially it was certainly a good mercato. Very careful spending. Quality-wise also good (or better promising). Quantity-wise, not enough. A couple of transfers were needed and we all know the positions. Closing, considering all the signings, it looks like Milan will… Read more »
When Romagnoli is back, we will have much better situation. And after Musacchio is back, we will be again up to 4 CBs. Kessie can drop in case of dire emergencies. So I guess it is not the end of the world. GK – The Saviour DR – Renewed Calabria, NoIdea Dalot, Hardworking SaleMaker, Potential Kalulu, Bad Conti DC – Capn Roma, NotJustAnother Kjaer, Novice Gabbia, The Guy with the Hot Girlfriend, Emergency Duarte, Kalulu DL – Marvelous Theo, Laxalt (?), Bad Calabria CM (2) – Improved Kessie, MVP Bennacer, TonaliPirloGattuso, Not Sold Krunic AM – Improved Hakan, Tiny Diaz,… Read more »
Had this mercatos transfers all been bought and paid for i would say we had done quite great but as we all know thats not the case im kinda disapointed by how we have acted. Add to that there are currently special circuimstances that to my understanding shows some leeway in regard of ffp it just make me more disapointed. First of all all the deals we have done besides of the hauge and kjær deal + the aquisition of some primavera players are pretty much all loans with buyout options. Tonali is the deal that sticks out the most… Read more »
I’m actually glad they did not panic buy or loan in last days. The names such as Nastasic, Rudiger, Kabak etc. are no upgrade to what we already have in defense, while Simakan is a complete mystery and more like one for the future. And we don’t need one for the future, we need someone who can bring competitivness and challenge the starters, like Tonali in midfield.
Also, I’m a bit disappointed we did not get Kessie and Theo’s understudies, cause we are short there.
Panic buy refers to us actually using the money we earned through sales at some point but the reality is we don’t spend any money at all every window. I’ll ask you this. Where was the money we gained from suso? Where did we spend it and how long ago was the sale. The sad reality is we won’t spend any of the money we earned not even come next transfer window. Mark my words as much as I regret writing this, milan we most liky loan players again in January and we will be asking this same question. We… Read more »
name one CB in our squad of the same level as Rudiger or Kabak, aside Romagnoli of course.
You’re not being serious right now. I wonder how you guys underate Kjaer. That guy is a bit above Romagnoli
Agree, I’ve been one of the critics of Kjaer and was really sceptical of his arrival. Afterall he was unwanted, benchwarmer in Atalanta but he proved a lot of us wrong. After seasons of uncertainty and inconsistency in defense, we now have a ticking pair in Kjaer and Romagnoli while Gabbia is proving to be a reliable partner to Kjaer as well. This means Kjaer indeed is a good defender as well as mentor and a leader. It would be foolish to disrupt this now but someone who will challenge him is welcome.
What is wrong with Elliot management, they didn’t invest a dime in milan this mercato do they even want this club to succeed, the only reason why milan are trying in the pitch is because maldini is a transfer guru, he wasn’t even able to buy a player for just 15m where did the money for paqueta and suso go; i play football manager alot, and know that maldini and pioli weren’t back one bit, milan summer transfer feels like how roma,lazio,atalanta run.Fuck u management we couldn’t even buy dalot or diaz fuck you elliot management please sell us to… Read more »
Thank you. I said the exact thing in my coment where is the suso money. We don’t spend any money at alla in any transfer window.
This window was a disappointing one. Elliot need to be run out of our club. Where are the ultras…. How are they letting this happen
No back up for zlatan, no rw, no lb and no back up for kessie. Yet we loan out Laxalt and bresciani! Both who could at least rotate for those positions. So when one of these guys get hurt, I’m guessing all the ppl who are crying for a cb are gonna be the ones saying we should have got back up. These positions were needed the most, not another rb and cb. You can’t say we didn’t have money. We sold suso, Silva and got money from qualification. What happened to selling dead eight like krunic? We fucked up… Read more »
Relax, i understand your frustration. The need for CB(as everyone was crying for) was also important as the other positions you mentioned because we dont have a good cover for Roma and Kjaer. Musa is injury n mistake prone. Duarte is not ready still and Gabbia is the only decent cover we got. There;s nothing we can do now. We dont know the exact plan. I think maybe management is thinking about quality signings in the Winter market after seeing how the the team performs? Either way now im glad we didnt buy an unproven defender as well. Lets just… Read more »
“as everyone was crying for” if by everyone u mean the uninitiated then yes, because i for one never wanted milan to buy cb this mercato. its dm that they need to buy
It’s very strange to me that everyone here prioritizes backups (CF, CB, DM) over actual starters – RW (and probably RB since we basically got ManU 3rd best RB). Yes, we have a lot of options there but none are at the level we really need. Why are we so Ibra-dependent? Because we have few natural goalers, and a top RW could have changed all that.
Well, they said the idea was to have two starters in every position. They ended up spending about €30 million on transfers, and making about €50 million in sales, thereby saving €20 million + €15 million from Europa League qualification. Bakayoko was available on loan, De Paul would have come for €20 million, we could have sold Castilejo for €15-20 and added the funds for Chiesa, now we were are calling for Theo backup, they ignored and concentrated on hoarding RBs, now they let Lexalt leave without a replacement. We were ready to spend, but the gamble has begun, just… Read more »
Most teams stalled their transfer window because of Covid19 but we got even stronger. I don’t get it how people can’t see it. The only first team player that left Is Bonna. We have 5 central defender. We have 4 defensive midfielder. Lots of wingers and full backs and 3 to 4 forwards with different characteristics. We also bought lots of young talents for our youth team.
Lots of wingers, lots of CBs, lots of FB – mate, it’s about quality not quantity. Milan can promote 11 players from the primevera tommorow. Will this improve the squad?
I hope Gazidis hires a medical team only for Kessie
gazidis and maldini will spend a lot of time at Duomo praying
This mercato has been a success, don’t let the last minute failure of a defender mask what a great job they did. Listen let’s start with the center back, in the last week we had over 5 names for a cb. I see the good in not getting one because now we can properly scope out who we need. Let’s be realistic, kjaer and romagnoli is the number one partnership and unless we were getting someone to take over kjaers spot and make him third choice there is no point in getting one. Romagnoli returns after the break, musacchio will… Read more »
Greetings to those of you, that believe musachio and duarte are good cover in defence, that can be trusted in matches against celtic, perhaps inter,lazio,roma,juv,nap and atalanta. That believe krunic is good cover for kessie.
That thinks dalot is good replacement for thei and kalulu good to bench calabria, let not forget rw samu and salekmakers, i wish you good greetings
I would like to welcome Federico Chiesa to the best club in Italy. You would provide the Mister plenty of options not just in attack but also possibly the wingback position as well.
Now go and show why a lot of people in this blog would like you to play for their club.
As always, Forza Juve!!
You shall be demolished again by mighty AC MILAN.
Yes ooh! Forza rube. All hail the local champions, the king of mediocrity. And your attitude depicts it. No class at all.
All and all, a lackluster window. We didn’t really strengthen our starting lineup, with our two main weaknesses – RW and to a lesser extend RB – not addressed, nor did we manage to get another quality CB for depth (T. Silva anyone?). This team is managed as a business, which is fine, but at the end of the day this business is about winning trophies and not player-trading. Milan mgmt need to take a page out of De Laurentiis book sometimes, and invest big for proven quality. Tonali is a great addition, don’t get me wrong, and there are… Read more »
After selling piatek, cutrone, suso, paqueta and Rodriguez. Milan still couldn’t buy CF and a CB. Am sorry but this squad can’t withstand pressure. Without zlatan we lack identity. I just hope this will not cause us a place in CL because our competitors have better squad depth and experience
You lie!