At first I was excited for this mercato, it was looking good... Dybala, Neto & Rugani in, Khedira to replace Pirlo and Mandzukic to replace Llorente. A great way to freshen up a very strong team. Then all hell breaks loose. First Tevez leaves, which obviously the management can't be blamed for but I still think it could have been handled better and not in such a limp wristed way. Why not offer him more money and extend contract for 1 year, or even just more money for one season? And then the stroke of genius selling Vidal for 37m. I can't say enough bad things about this. Beppe himself even said that Vidal would have been happy to stay, but no he $#@!ing sells the BEST B2B MIDFIELDER IN THE WORLD for 37 $#@!ing million in this day and age. Ok so Vidal really wants to leave? Well $#@! him then, have a bidding war if he doesn't want to respect us, we have no obligation to grant him his wish; we are not a charity. So we sell him for a paltry fee and have no one to replace him with, dragging the mercato on to the last day with barely an adequate replacement for 3 of our most important players. We gave Llorente away for free, he clearly is still a good player but we just palmed him off for $#@!ing free. 'We saved 20m in wages'... too bad we bought $#@!ing Zaza for 18m. Why the hell sign that turd over Berardi? Coman is really not a great deal either looking at it now. Initially I was for the move considering it was looking likely that Draxler would come, but we could really use Coman now and if he turns out to be a great player, 28m is really not much at all. Cuadrado strikes me as a desperate panic move more than anything else, I don't think he'll end up being used as a starter. Sandro is a good signing, a bit overpriced but I won't fault Beppe for that, it was Porto after all. Nice to see us finally signing a proper LB/LWB.
The good:
Dybala
Sandro
Ogbonna
Rugani
The ????:
Cuadrado
Khedira
The average:
Mandzukic
Neto
Coman
The bad:
Tevez
The what the $#@! were you thinking Beppe:
Vidal
Llorente
Zaza
So what has really happened to the team over the mercato? What was the best midfield in the world has pretty much been dismantled and turned into a big question mark. We have Marchisio, and who knows how Pogba will perform now without Vidal and/or Pirlo alongside him. Despite how much I rate him, being realistic Asamoah hasn't played CM for over 3 years and is coming back from a huge injury and Khedira so far could be injured half the time or more. We've lost what was our key player in Tevez and replaced him with a 21 year old talent who has pretty much been left to carry all attacking duties on his shoulders. He may turn out to be great in the future, but if management is expecting any results this season they've gone the wrong way about it. Look at our forward line, we have Dybala and three players that play the same position. Can someone please explain the point of having Morata, Mandzukic AND Zaza. That $#@! just doesn't make sense. So what has improved? The backline. Rugani seems to be a big talent and Sandro is the LB that we always needed. Getting rid of Ogbonna and a nice fee to go along with it is great. However, the team has just changed so much... the whole identity of the team is changed. Now that's not always a bad thing, but when you don't bring in even one experienced creative attacker/playmaker to carry the burden of what was there before (Vidal, Pirlo & Tevez), you're basically shooting yourself in the foot. Tevez and Vidal are both incredible players, and it can be said that they both do the work of 2 players each. To make up for that, you must sign a top top player i.e. the likes of Aguero (not realistic) or improve across the pitch. We haven't done either of those things. The best is Dybala who while talented, currently doesn't even make up for one of them and Sandro is a good player but not a world beater. Additionally, despite spending over €110m, we have failed to get the one player that the coach has asked for. That is nothing but pure failure, incompetency if you will.
Overall I give this mercato a 3/10. Unless we sign a top player nothing will change that rating. Certainly not the likes of Lemina, Vasquez or Sneijder.
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