They're not really flops but overpriced. 9 Mil for current Dodo? Yes he's young but we're not sure how he's gonna turn out, and he's not really top prospect to be worth that much. His price is close to Icardi, who's younger and was really hyped before we signed him. I don't think 9 Mil for him is smart.
Medel should be at 5-6Mil if we're smart enough. He's fast and run so much, but his quality is no where near top players level, even the old ones. The fact is he can't cover our defence like Cambiaso did last season, due to his lack of anticipation, leadership and position awareness, although he ran much more than Cambiasso. And both him and M'Villa can't score as well. With 9Mil for him, we have other options:
- Extend Cambiasso's contract for 1 more year, with cheap salary around 1-2Mil.
- Sign Obiang, who has a lot of potential, decent defending skills (not good enough to work as DM though), decent passing, can work with Icardi. Dude has bad season last year as expected from a youngster in a bad team, so his price should be cheap. Now he's good again and not sure if we can afford him in the future.
- Sign Allan from Udinese. He's better than Medel, maybe a little more expensive but really worth it.
- Keep Taider.
Taider or Obiang are not DM, but they both can contribute to defence. Meanwhile we have 2 real DMs and still can't defend, so it's meaningless after all.
And I wouldn't even call them flops. Flops are Vidic, M'Villa. This year the only decent deal is Osvaldo. All the others are from overpriced to flops.
So, where Ausilio's fault is, if Tohir doesn't want to spent any cash? And also his moves on the market strongly depend from the coach. As far as i know, Mazzari had wanted Behrami and Ausilio got Medel instead. Medel is better than Behrami, there is no doubt. About Mvila - there is no obligatory clause to buy him, so this is not "flop" move. This transfer is similar to Gargano's move made by Branca. You mentioned Kovacic, but he came here due to Sramaccioni's request, not because of Branca's scouting skills. And alongside with Palacio, Kova, Handan and other guys you've missed the Branca's flops: Pereira, Shelotto, Silvestre, Rocchi, Kharja, Nagatomi, Alvarez, Kuzkuz and the stupid deals - Cassano + money = Belfodil, Snaider to Galatasarai and Kou to Liverpool (despite we got Kovacic instead ). I'm back to last (summer) transfer window. Mazzari had requested for DM (Behrami), striker and wingback. With very limited budget Ausilio completed this task. Osvaldo is our best striker till now and Medel is very good DM. Dodo is average, but still is better than Nagatomi.
Yes, I already said that Kovacic deal was completed thanks to Cassano's agent mostly. M'Villa is flop because we still have to pay the loan fee and his salary. As I mentioned above, there are other options than signing Medel for 9Mil. He's not flop, but overpriced. Mazzarri is stupid for requesting Behrami, but signing Medel for 9Mil wasn't good at all. At least for Gargano case it was a loan only, so we could return him back. And how can you say Dodo is better than Naga? Naga in his form was much better than Dodo, and I don't even want to see Naga as a starter here.
I don't want Branca back either, because he signed too many flops, that's also the reasons I didn't list his flops here. But out of 10 flops he has 1-2 good deals, meanwhile Ausilio got zero good deal.
The Cassano deal when we signed him was a great deal, trade him for Belfodil is a stupid move. It's typical Branca style, but Ausilio is even worse.