Finish the season with honour’ AC Milan boss Leonardo has proclaimed, but the Serie A season cannot finish soon enough for the Rossoneri as the 3-1 defeat inflicted by Palermo brought home some stark realisations for AC Milan and their supporters.
The third place side travelled to Sicily to face Delio Rossi’s Palermo team who are in the fight for fourth place and in some scintillating form, whilst also showing magnificent team spirit the weekend previous by coming back from two goals down against Cagliari.
As the Aquile go from strength to the Diavolo seem to have run out of steam during the final furlong. Leonardo’s team selection on Saturday again brought home the distinct lack of depth and quality in the Milan set-up. There were four full-backs in the first eleven, Marek Jankulovski, Massimo Oddo, Luca Antonini and Gianluca Zambrotta. Two of which were played out of position – Oddo at centre back and Jankulovski in midfield.
Defensively Milan are awash with old, unreliable players, Giuseppe Favalli being a case in point and miss the injured Alessandro Nesta more than a fat cop misses a donut. Delving further into the squad, four of the six outfield players on the substitutes bench were from the primavera side, thus supplementing the argument for more squad depth.
Not that I want to demean any of the youngsters as they are a quality bunch of players shown by the fact they have reached the Coppa Italia Final and are second in the Primavera Championship, but I would expect these young players to be blooded in slowly and having to earn their place in one of the most prestigious in the peninsula.
But having made the point about investment needed in the club time and time again, it looks as if Milan will be having a quiet summer as vice-president of the club Adriano Galliani has said, “I wanted to reinforce the structure of the youth sector to get it back to a very high level. We can confirm that a new era began for the Rossoneri's academy in the summer of 2009. We'll keep investing a lot in the youth sector.”
So it looks likely a complete first team squad overhaul that is well overdue will be put off for another season, this backed up by Galliani’s statement after the AC Milan annual general meeting where he said, "We will not be selling any stars. Certainly not Pato, certainly not Thiago Silva, Certainly not Ronaldinho, Huntelaar and Borriello.”
He continued, "Silvio Berlusconi loves Milan, but he will not spend €810m in five years like Inter did."
No ins and no outs according to Galliani, the same man who proclaimed Kaka would not be sold last summer.
Having said that some minor points of speculation regarding the Milan strikers has been doing the rounds recently. First Pato is rumoured to be leaving for either Real Madrid or Chelsea and Huntelaar, who has constantly been liked with the Premier League since his arrival at the San Siro, is once again being linked with a move away, this time to Manchester United in part-exchange for Dimitar Berbatov.
If Milan let Pato go, it would be a clear signal from the hierarchy Milan are now a selling club as the €50 million he would bring in, would not be spent on reinforcing the team, more likely used to balance the books at Via Turati.
Finally we come to the future of Leonardo. Unhappy at the numerous jibes from Silvio Berlusconi about his tactics, the Brazilian looks increasingly likely to be out of the Milan hot seat this summer.
Unhappy with lack of funds to strengthen, coupled with his family being in Brazil, the end of the road seems neigh.
Some tifosi cannot wait for the summer but it may prove to be another summer of disappointment for the long-suffering Rossoneri fans.
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