This is our midfield signings since we signed Ronaldo:
Emre Can - free
Rabiot - free
Ramsey - free
McKennie - around 18m
Arthur - a money laundering scheme with Pjanic (in reality we spent 20m at most on him)
You are making it out as if we are spending as freely as Man City, we are not. The truth is that we are penny-pinching in midfield.
Emre Can - free
Rabiot - free
Ramsey - free
McKennie - around 18m
Arthur - a money laundering scheme with Pjanic (in reality we spent 20m at most on him)
You are making it out as if we are spending as freely as Man City, we are not. The truth is that we are penny-pinching in midfield.
It might be true, though, that we haven't spend big money on a midfielder (not counting Arthur obviously, since his cost was 12m+Pjanic), because we couldn't find a worthy one to spend the money on.
We did spend 75m on De Ligt, about 50-60m on Chiesa, 40m on Cancelo, 35m on Bonucci, 35 on Kulusevski since we signed Ronaldo. We had the money, but we paid them for players we considered worthy. My guess is that we couldn't find a worthy and available midfielder.
My criticism towards Paratici and co. isn't about not being able to buy a 60-70m euro midfielder (because I believe they were willing to buy Pogba or de Jong, but teams wouldn't sell or other big teams would outbid us), but not being able to find a worthy cheaper, or a potential world class cheap(er) midfielder, like Marotta did with Pirlo, Vidal and Pogba.
Perhaps, and possibly, it wasn't easy to find such guys, maybe it was even close to impossible, but no one cares. It's their job to find these players, and they didn't.
We did spend 75m on De Ligt, about 50-60m on Chiesa, 40m on Cancelo, 35m on Bonucci, 35 on Kulusevski since we signed Ronaldo. We had the money, but we paid them for players we considered worthy. My guess is that we couldn't find a worthy and available midfielder.
My criticism towards Paratici and co. isn't about not being able to buy a 60-70m euro midfielder (because I believe they were willing to buy Pogba or de Jong, but teams wouldn't sell or other big teams would outbid us), but not being able to find a worthy cheaper, or a potential world class cheap(er) midfielder, like Marotta did with Pirlo, Vidal and Pogba.
Perhaps, and possibly, it wasn't easy to find such guys, maybe it was even close to impossible, but no one cares. It's their job to find these players, and they didn't.
Obviously we are spending money on defenders, fullbacks and attackers because the entire team needs to be refreshed constantly, not just the midfield.
We are spending a total of 400m on Ronaldo (transfer fee plus wages). It's hard to imagine that this all this money we are spending on him does not limit us in the transfer market in some ways.
Imagine if we did not spend those 400m on Ronaldo and instead had a midfield of De Paul, Aouar and Locatelli. Would we not be a better team right now?
By the way, if we were not spending 60m/year on Ronaldo, then we probably could have afforded Lukaku without having to trade Dybala for him, so there's your answer as to where the goals would come from.
At the end of the day, when you analyze if an investment is worth it, you look at what this investment is giving you vs what you could potentially get if you spend the money somewhere else.
Was spending 400m on Ronaldo the best move we made to improve as a team?
We are spending a total of 400m on Ronaldo (transfer fee plus wages). It's hard to imagine that this all this money we are spending on him does not limit us in the transfer market in some ways.
Imagine if we did not spend those 400m on Ronaldo and instead had a midfield of De Paul, Aouar and Locatelli. Would we not be a better team right now?
By the way, if we were not spending 60m/year on Ronaldo, then we probably could have afforded Lukaku without having to trade Dybala for him, so there's your answer as to where the goals would come from.
At the end of the day, when you analyze if an investment is worth it, you look at what this investment is giving you vs what you could potentially get if you spend the money somewhere else.
Was spending 400m on Ronaldo the best move we made to improve as a team?
Imagine if instead of paying north of 100m for MDS, Rugani, Costa, Berna, 4th GK who's not even in the team, Dybala who's been useless for 3 years, renewing contracts to Matuidi, Khedira and Mario then paying them to leave short thereafter, giving huge contracts to Arthur, Ramsey and Rabiot we actually spent that money on Barella, Gosens, Aouar, Locatelli?
Every transfer is a risk that could not work out. Listing failed transfers (with a few exceptions) and saying "well what if we just didn't buy them and bought these amazing players that worked out instead" says nothing for me. Why haven't any of us just put our life savings into Amazon stock back in 2010? Same thing.
We would have been invested big money in mid on last summer if there were'nt extraordinary situation named covid. We had 300M from capital investment from shareholder last year. Some of them was supposed to be invested in transfer but covid ruin everything. Romano himself believe we would have been bought pogba.
Now "the ronaldo project" need to be evaluated again. I don't know which one management choose but i believe our only option to save this club besides new coach is to sell ronaldo or dybala. We need to buy players we necessarily need espescially in mid.
If we decide to hire max again, i am certain ronaldo will go. He can't bear pragmatic approach againts small club. He want to score as much as he can. How many times he look mad at many chances we had but team decided to backpass and dont have the desire to attack anymore after one or two goal lead.
Now "the ronaldo project" need to be evaluated again. I don't know which one management choose but i believe our only option to save this club besides new coach is to sell ronaldo or dybala. We need to buy players we necessarily need espescially in mid.
If we decide to hire max again, i am certain ronaldo will go. He can't bear pragmatic approach againts small club. He want to score as much as he can. How many times he look mad at many chances we had but team decided to backpass and dont have the desire to attack anymore after one or two goal lead.
Now i have no doubts that he will be sold.
In this dire times, and with the ineptitude/urgency reigning in the management.... theres no 2 ways about it. We will have to reorganize the team at his expense. We are in the year 3 and the ronaldo experiment is as fail as ever.
The outcome to reinvest and rearm the team is clear IMO. And is sad because he has been a victim of our imcompetence. Such a proffesional and talented player victim on this cursed loser team.
In this dire times, and with the ineptitude/urgency reigning in the management.... theres no 2 ways about it. We will have to reorganize the team at his expense. We are in the year 3 and the ronaldo experiment is as fail as ever.
The outcome to reinvest and rearm the team is clear IMO. And is sad because he has been a victim of our imcompetence. Such a proffesional and talented player victim on this cursed loser team.
EVERY club gets transfers wrong. EVERY club gets some right and some wrong.
I have praised Liverpool and Klopp many times for building a fantastic team on a budget similar to ours, but they still got some transfers wrong (60m on Keita, 40m on Oxlade-Chamberlain)
In your ideal world - where Juve nailed every transfer - then yes it is theoretically it is possible for Juve to build a top club around Ronaldo.
The problem is that the enormous Ronaldo investment of 345m gives us significantly less flexibility in the transfer market.
I have praised Liverpool and Klopp many times for building a fantastic team on a budget similar to ours, but they still got some transfers wrong (60m on Keita, 40m on Oxlade-Chamberlain)
In your ideal world - where Juve nailed every transfer - then yes it is theoretically it is possible for Juve to build a top club around Ronaldo.
The problem is that the enormous Ronaldo investment of 345m gives us significantly less flexibility in the transfer market.