Due to
the nth delay in the sale of the club, everyone has said that there will be no
investments in the mercato. The only way anyone will come in is if someone is
sold. Not that Galliani hasn’t said that before, but considering that results
have been better than expected this season and there are so many steps to
approve any movement in the mercato at all, this time it seems a very harsh
reality. But never fear, Galliani is still in charge. And so far, he has not
disappointed at all. Brace yourselves for the anti-mercato.
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| "That is a waste of a whole lot of money. I'm just going to walk away now." |
First up,
dumping Luiz Adriano, who should be taking medicals shortly for Spartak Moscow.
Seemed kinda obvious he’d leave, he’s not gotten much playing time. But
considering that 18 mos. ago, we paid €14m for him (€8m + €6m in undisclosed
fees,) the €1m reported funds we will receive in return is a massive slap in
the face. But, thanks to the beauty of social media, there is a story going
around that we will save €30-35m in wages!! Now I’m no mathematician, but
Adriano’s wages were €3m/yr. and he had 3.5 yrs left on his contract. That’s
€10.5m we’d save over 3.5 years. I asked a lot of smart people where this
€30-35m figure was coming from, they said it was probably gross wages, before taxes. If so, his gross
wages would be around €10m/yr, or around 10% of Milan’s entire wage bill. Which
is certainly not true. So the real formula is: spent €14m + €4.5m in wages for
the past 18 mos., meaning total cost: €18.5m for Luiz Adriano. Selling him for
€1m transfer fees. A loss of €17.5m.
If you want to listen to Galliani and point out the ridiculous €10.5m in saved wages,
that’s a loss of only €7.5m… between his signing and the year
2020. Winning.
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| "Surely no one will notice how much money I'm wasting if I wear these trunks" |
Next up, the Storari-Gabriel swap. Milan get
an old, washed up, discipline-problem keeper who didn’t want to be at Milan 10
years ago to give their 24 year-old never-should-have-bought keeper six months
of first team experience at a club with one of the worst defensive records in
the league. That’s a vintage Galliani 2012 move right there. Everyone loses.
Everyone. Here’s an idea, why don’t we sell Gabriel and let him get some proper
first team experience at a club that actually cares about developing a good
solid young keeper? We might even lose less than €17.5m on that deal. In fact,
it turns out we only ever paid €500.000 for him four years ago, plus wages for
the 1.5 seasons he’s actually played for Milan would be €750.000. So €1.25m
loss over four years time… kinda seems like we could practically give him away
without the trauma of bringing Storari in. But that’s so Galliani… risk the
dressing room to give a 6 month loan to a kid you bought four years ago who
deserves better, but dump someone you spent €18.5m for 18 months ago. Yeah, that
happened.
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| Exactly what Milan need: an angry, abusive old man to bring some "experience" to the squad |
Consider
also that every transfer deal has to be approved by Galliani as well as Fassone
and Mirabelli as well as Sino Europe. So by the time everyone says yes, any
potential players we wanted will have signed and perhaps already played with another
club. Rumors have been flying about several “players of interest” and even
rumors about Mirabelli making agreements for summer transfers. Woah, there
social media. Remember, the deal has to actually close before anyone can be doing that.
But at least that rumor acknowledges that we won’t be able to do much of
anything in this mercato, it’s like the anti-mercato. So this year, as you break out the hard
core 12 year old girl act for the month, when you read a new rumor and wonder if it's real or not, ask yourself if it has confirmed not only by Milan but also by Sino Europe. Until you read both
reports from credible sources, it’s definitely not happening.
In the past five years, Milan have had some pretty horrible transfer markets. And while nothing
beats selling your two best players in the summer of 2012, replacing them with
second division players from lesser leagues and not reinvesting the €70-90m you got at all, this
mercato is shaping up to be pretty terrible. Kind of feels like we will give
away anyone of value and do whatever it takes to keep those we don’t need or
don’t cost much. I’d like to say, “Well at least this is Galliani’s last
mercato,” but isn’t that what we told ourselves last summer? It’s like he tried
to squeeze out the last drops of blood last summer, but now has been given this
gift to squeeze out even more. Galliani’s already negative €17.5m in his first
move, can he do better? How much of Milan’s precious little mercato funds from
the past four years can he squander? Coming out of a mercato worse than it
started really is his specialty, so let’s all brace ourselves for the
anti-mercato.
This post inspired
by the music of Ludo’s “Go-Getter Greg”
Our next match is
Milan vs. Cagliari
Sunday, January 8 •
18:00 CET (12noon EST)