This is from Calcio e Finanza. Typically accurate but they tend to downplay some of the figures at times until they read the correct ones from our books.
Amortization costs of ~85m this season.
I worry that we'll see Lukaku return with a similar figure which would be detrimental for our season, unless he somehow gets serious and becomes helpful, which is still not enough.
De Vrij will either stay with the same cost base or leave. Amortization wise it won't matter a lot. -1.5m or -500k.
Skriniar's will leave. -5m
Assuming Bastoni renews, he'll have a slightly reduced amortization cost. Let's say -1m.
Dalbert will finally leave. -5m.
Gagliardini will leave. -5m
Correa won't depart easily, so I guess we're stuck with his hefty cost.
Sensi may be sold. I'll imagine he gets sold so -7m, which is probably what we'll fetch from him from a team like Fiorentina, Monza or Udinese.
No idea on Lazaro, best case scenario Torino exercises the option. Either way, I'm assuming he leaves, so -4m.
Bellanova may not be redeemed but even if he does, his amortization cost would drop to slightly over 1m per year (7m transfer, 4 year deal), so let's say -2m to keep it simple.
So in this scenario, we would drop from 85m to 57m, including signing Acerbi for 4m (2 year deal).
Assuming De Vrij, Skriniar, Handanovic, Cordaz, Gagliardini, Dalbert, Sensi and Lazaro leave, with room for a Gosens sale and also assuming that Radu and Vanheusden will be loaned out again, that drops our 126m salary spending to ~100m.
Giving us a total cost of let's say 160m but missing at least 4 roster spots. Two starting central defenders, a backup GK and a backup central midfielder.
If Dzeko also leaves, that drops our total cost to 150m but we'll then need another starting forward.
I'm expecting Dumfries to be sold. If Lautaro or Barella are sold Curva Nord will have Marotta's head after losing Skriniar. A Dumfries and Gosens sale, along with Ausilio plusvalenza magic, would cover our capital gains needs. But we'd need a starting right wing back.
Costs now drop to 145m.
It pretty much becomes imperative to get rid of Joaquin Correa. And it wouldn't be prudent to renew Lukaku's deal, no matter what under-the-table deal we may have with Chelsea. That's 35m per year total cost and we have several options.
By figuring out a way to get rid of Correa (~16m to avoid capital losses) and not extending Lukaku, we go to 110m total costs, and we have room to raise it to ~170m.
Needs in this scenario:
Backup GK x2. Options are Sportiello, Sirigu, Bardi (Club trained?), Leali from Italians. Others are Soria, Vaclik, Karius (Diletta approved), Begovic... Not very relevant unless Onana becomes very shaky and we need someone reliable there. I like Sepe, Skorupski and Dragowski from potentially cheap Serie A candidates.
Right wing back. Idea Cancelo on loan once again to complete the cycle, but way too complicated now. Possible free agents are Bellerin, Coufal, Sergi Roberto, Aurier, Nelson Semedo, Adama Traore.. not a fan of most of these options. At best, we loan someone like Mouzraoui or try and poach Lazzari.
Backup left wing back. Bensebaini (long time Inter target, but would be better off as Bastoni's backup), Grimaldo or Jonas Hector as potential free agent targets that would be willing to be rotation guys at best and wouldn't cost a fortune. I'd welcome Biraghi back honestly, also fills the club trained quotas.
Center back x2. Freebies are Yerry Mina and Ndicka since Soyuncu is moving to Atletico... and our favorites. Smalling, Murillo and Juan Jesus. Unfortunately we're going to need transfers here and I expect us to go again for Milenkovic to replace Skriniar and Acerbi will end up sticking as the main guy in the middle unless we can also get Becao.
Rotational central midfielder. Reason this isn't a backup player is because after Barella, Brozovic and Hakan our next guys are a raw Asllani and an ageing Mkhitaryan. We need a 4th midfielder here to relegate the Armenian. Bosman targets could be any of Tielemans, Gundogan, Ceballos, Pereyra... watch us go for Sturaro, though.
Forwards x2. Roberto Firmino and Marcus Thuram, please. Other options aren't as good. We drop to the likes of Vietto, Mariano Diaz etc and we can't really afford to go for transfer for such players.
Backup Striker. I'd go for Andrea Belotti here who's having a very off season, so I imagine he'd be a cheap pick up for top teams that need depth. Other option is someone like Beto from Udinese but he won't be cheap.
So let's say we get Sportiello (3m gross) and Bardi (1m gross) to fill the GK spots that Handanovic and Cordaz occupied. Sportiello is good enough to start half the games so he'll be good competition for Onana as well.
I guess Bellerin would be our #1 free transfer for the RWB spot. He's fast and not overage but that's about it. And that's usually enough for this position. Assuming a 5m gross cost (3.5m net plus growth decree) would cut it,
Bensebaini would warrant a little over 2.5m net, so let's say 4m gross. Don't think Grimaldo is an option and Hector is rather old.
I'm guessing Roberto Pereyra would be our target as Gundogan would want to start somewhere and may move to Turkey, Tielemans would have other suitors and Ceballos has a roster spot at Real Madrid so it's hard to convince him without a starting spot. Pereyra makes 1m so I guess we'll almost double it. Let's say 3.5m gross.
Firmino makes 5.5m net at Liverpool. Give him 6m and a starting spot next to Lautaro and he's probably coming here. Don't see much competition for him from outside Italy. It would be between us, Juventus and perhaps Milan who will lowball him. Only X factor is Barcelona who make weird choices and Atletico Madrid is another option but not sure if they have the roster spots for him.
Marcus Thuram has interest from Bayern that cooled down and there are some PL clubs after him. We'll see if Man Utd goes for him. There's also PSG who have a transfer fetish for forwards but no room for him. Give him anything over 4.5m net (triple his current deal) and we're in the conversation.
Belotti makes less than 3m at Roma, give him a 2 year deal at 3m if Dzeko leaves and we're good, provided that we secure at least one of the two forwards mentioned above. Otherwise we'd need someone more reliable and probably a guaranteed starter. Which would cost more.
That pretty much builds the entire team minus the two starting CBs with free agents, but it's difficult to pull off. Funnily enough, all this would cost a little over 35m. Which is what we regain from letting Lukaku go back to Chelsea and not having Correa affect our books (ie loan at book value without paying his salary or sell without losses).
This takes us to 145m squad cost for the year. And we have, let's say, another 25m.
Milenkovic could cost 25m or maybe 30m. Being greedy, I could consider a 35m bid with 16m Correa going the other way... Either way, the effect of Milenkovic on the books would be at most 7m amortization cost and his salary wouldn't be higher than 6m gross. Which means 13m cost for our books.
Assuming Becao would cost slightly less, we can get to the ~170m cost (make it 180m with the possible extensions of Bastoni and Hakan), which is a significant drop from the 220m cost of this season and still, in my view, have a competitive squad that could reach the CL KO round and definitely maintain a top 4 position in Serie A, and why not even challenge for the Scudetto, unless Napoli doesn't stop their frenzy run.
The defensive setup would need to tick of course, but Milenkovic is actually more than decent at RCB and his shortcomings from a two man defense are hidden, whilst Becao is at worse an okay CB.
---------------------------------------Onana
-------------Milenkovic---------------Becao----------------Bastoni
Bellerin---------------------------------------------------------------------Dimarco
-------------------Barella------------Brozovic----------Hakan
------------------Lautaro-----------------------Firmino
Bench:
Sportiello (GK)
Bardi (GK)
Darmian (WBR, WBL, RCB)
D'Ambrosio (RCB, WBR)
Acerbi (CB)
Bensebaini (LCB, WBL)
Pereyra (MC)
Mkhitaryan (MC)
Asllani (MC)
Thuram (ST)
Belotti (ST)
roster fillers, 3 youth players that can play CB, MC and ST respectively.
Just note that if Lukaku or Correa stays, half of this isn't even possible...
So under the circumstances with our ownership situation, this is one of the best case scenarios. Not too bad on paper, but definitely a downgrade in defense but offensively, in terms of depth, it's an upgrade and perhaps a platform to build on. For the new owners I hope.
10 years of FIF
) but it is what it is. Beggars can't be choosers. Zhangs need to go first before anything long-term positive things can happen.
