One of Marotta's weaknesses. Too focused on paying market premiums for mediocre "Serie A experienced" trash.
I'm not saying we should haphazardly shell out for Dalbert's and Lazaro's but there's a lot of affordable talent abroad which we need to do better in taking advantage of. More Dumfries', less Vidal's and Gagliardini's.
Milan for example have made plenty of shrewd signings from abroad. Kalulu for just 1m, Maignan for just 15m. They've also secured Adli for a low fee and he looks like an interesting player.
But no, we prefer to chase the likes of Bernardeschi and Acerbi.
Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that purchasing within Italy is more likely to provide us with certain assistances. For example, Marotta's relationships with club officials is often leveraged to help us save money by structuring deals in a favorable loan + obligation format. We can also include certain gentlemen's agreements and plusvalenza-generating trades with young players - something that foreign clubs are less likely to accept.
Ultimately though, it's all irrelevant if you're structuring a favorable deal for a mediocre bumfuck of a player. Irrespective of our finances, it's not an acceptable excuse anymore. Even with our finances being in this abominable state, there are still bargains if we do our due diligence. Additionally, I think the Marotta effect is overrated anyhow. We still always end up paying full price for these fucking cunts anyway. Or at best, we go from a 20m transfer to an 18m + 2m bonuses transfer (which is great, but not when you spend 9 weeks on the deal and neglect other deals).
We need to be more creative and less reliant on talent within Italy. If we were presented with the chance to sign Maignan for 15m, we would prefer to sign fucking Cragno for 20m. Between a young, unproven talent like Kalulu for 1m and an old-as-fuck, mediocre twat like Acerbi for 8m, we're taking Acerbi. You all know this is true.