FM15: AC Milan - Turning Free Transfers Into Champions

[nWoTrezeguet]

We did it again, with 3 games left in the season. Zivkovic and Gabbiadini, both with 23 goals have won this for us (The nearest goalscorers are Lacazette and Aubameyang with 6 both of them) also Gabbiadini was in the top of the assits with 10, Lacazette with 8 and then Wagstaff and Vrsaljko with 7.

We are in the TIM Cup final too... Things are looking GREAT.

[johnsonville]

Just started up a save with AC Milan. Have messed around with a few different teams but my hopes are that this will become my predominant save for this years version of game. I have always wanted to restore a team to its former glory and in playing with Juventus in the past have enjoyed the Serie A.

First order of business was to clear some payroll. The team is structured in a manner that suits playing on both the domestic and continental, something Milan does not do. The roster is ridden with players whose wages do not represent their value and I went about fixing that.

[b]TRANSFERS OUT[/b]
Bonera		€150k		Hellas Verona		(Paying €14k p/w till 6/30/2016)
Essien		€375k		Sunderland		(Paying €37.5k p/w till 6/30/2015)
Mexes		€200k		Toulouse		(Paying €100k p/w till 6/30/2015)
Torres		-		Chelsea			(Loan terminated)
Pazzini		€5.5M		Southampton
Zaccardo	€150k		Hella Verona		(Paying €3.9k p/w till 6/30/2016)

[b]TRANSFERS IN[/b]
Eder Alvarez Balanta		€6.75M		River Plate
Paulo Dybala			€7M		Palermo
Martin Ødegaard			Free		Strømsgodset		(Joining 1/2/2015)
Lucas Romero			€8.5M		Velez
Yaya Sanogo			Loan		Arsenal

Generally happy with my transfer window. Bonera, Essien, Mexes, Torres, and Zaccardo were simply worth far less than their wages indicated. Pazzini was the toughest sell but I was able to bring in Dybala and Sanogo to help at the striker position. Foregoing with both Torres and Pazzini also allows me to give some playing time to Niang to help with his development. If a shortage at the striker position does emerge, El Shaarawy can cover.

Balanta and Romero will provide immediate assistance and add some much needed youth to the squad. My hope is Ødegaard will grow alongside Mastour to provide me with one of the best playmaking duos in the world in the future.

Note that Tottenham seems interested in Zapata and will I love to hold onto the Columbian, a proper bid may see headed to the Premier League. Probable replacements are Tore Reginiussen or a loan.

[PeterPistola]

If you sell Zapata bring in Alessio Romagnoli from AS Roma, should be available for around £8M. You'd have Balanta, Rami, Alex, Romagnoli absolute quality defenders there. And if need be, purchase on a free transfer Diego Lugano. Decent back up for at least first season. I was considering it but due to no European football in first season I didn't think it made much sense.

[PeterPistola]

Finally completed my first season which ended quite positive. Completed the double, winning the title by 6 points over Juventus and destroying Napoli in the final of the Coppa Italia 6-2.

Here's the screenshot of the final league standings.

The title went down to the wire, Juve and myself were level on points up until round 35 where we were victorious 5-3.

Our succes was undoubtedly down to one player….. Stephen El Shaarawy. Sold Pazzini, terminated the loan of El Nino (Fernando Torres) which only left us with SES, Niang who can play up front. He (SES) was immense, scoring 32 goals in 33 games. And not only that, he was also the European Golden Shoe. Beating Tevez by 3 goals and Falcao by a further 1.

Other then SES, there was no real other player who'd step up. Bernard and Depay were amazing out wide and creating a truck load of chances along with assists, I guess it's not common for midfielders scoring over 20 goals but if it weren't for the heroics of 1 man there'd be no chance in making ECC let alone winning the title.

Now on to the Coppa Italia, It was rather straight forward. Toughest game we had was the Qtr final over Roma, other then that no one else really gave us a fight. Surprised really, toggling between using youth and starting XI……… Depending who we were following up against the following week in the league. Simple Round of 16 victory over Spezia 3-0, followed up with a hard fought 1-0 win over Roma away from home…… 5-0 aggregate Semi Final win over Inter to the 6-2 final win over Napoli. The final was harder then the score suggests but we were just far more clinical.

Very impressive season overall, by no means did we expect this. I thought top 4 would be a decent achievement but winning and holding off Juve with no real depth up front is quite a shock.

Now onto the beginning of our second season. Abate and Abbiati along with over 30 other payers contracts we didn't renew. Reluctantly sold Giacomo Bonaventura to Arsenal for £17M. He was one of my players I didn't want to sell, as he can cover every position in midfield. Incredibly versatile, but he was whining about thinking that Juve wanted to sign him. And I couldn't change his mind. Plus 15 other players were either free transferred if I couldn't get a fee for them or players sold for a small amount. Diego Lopez was sold to Roma for £7M and M'Baye Niang to Genoa for £6.75M. He was not playing that much for me and I feel his potential I feel has been halted as a result.

And in come is Andrea Poli (winning the blind auction) for £5M. Sampdoria bidder £3M. Ruben Neves from Porto for £17M and Alex Teixera from Shakter Donestk for £10.5. Matteo Darmian from Torino for £15M, Christian Manea for £3.25M from FC Viltorui, Alessio Cerci from Parma for loan (They wanted over £10M for him despite being relegated. But in the negotiations of the loan I can purchase for £4M. Go figure ???)

Alex will be my new Bonaventura, good as well due to the contract being as a back up. So if he turns into Bonaventura, I won't hesitate into selling. Due to my array of talent in my new-gens.

Will post once in January, my objections are the same this season as last, to qualify for ECC. As I've let 1 or 2 important players leave and relying heavily on youth. So this may not be a successful season plus also being in Europe. But fingers crossed nonetheless.

So my starting X! for the upcoming season…..

GK - Mattia Perin

RB - Matteo Darmian

CB - Adil Rami

CB - Edgar Alvarez Balanta

LB - Mattia De Sciglio

DM (A) - Lucas Romero

DLP (S) - Youri Tielemens

AMR - Memphis Depay

AMC - Kingsley Coman

AML - Bernard

ST - Stephen El Shaarawy

Back up XI……..

GK - Simone Scuffet

RB - Christian Manea

CB - Alex

CB - Alessio Romagnoli

LB - Andrea Llamas

DM (A) - Ruben Neves

DLP (S) - Andrea Poli

AMR - Gabriel Barbosa / Alex Teixiera

AMC - Hachim Mastour / Humam Tariq

AML - Pavel Savitskiy

ST - Andrea Pelati / Marcus Klefenz (Both of which are my new-gens)

[Pampu20]

Who is Italian here?

[acmilanboy7]

Who is Italian here?

Italian here, living in australia !!!

[PeterPistola]

Who is Italian here?

Italian - Australian living in Italy.

[PeterPistola]

Italian Super cup in the bag. If this is how Serie A is this season, then it'll be another two horse race. Was expecting more of a challenge, but we absolutely destroyed them.

Now to begin the second season in Serie A. Home game against Palermo coming up for Rd 1. In the Champions League we have been handed a difficult Group A. Consisting of Barcelona, AS Monaco and Dinamo Zagreb. So these young boys are really going to have to up their game some how. Or I might look at some older players to loan in. We'll see.

[waynehead]

Afternoon gents. In the second season and looking for either a left back or centre forward. Got 20 mil to play with. Any suggestions?

[Pampu20]

alex sandro - left back

[Filgaliel]

Afternoon gents. In the second season and looking for either a left back or centre forward. Got 20 mil to play with. Any suggestions?

Take a look at Kostas Stafylidis.

[james_wilko]

Have any of you got a screenshot of Mastour a few seasons in? Wanting to see how he develops.

Cheers

[Chr1s Lawson]

Thought I'd start a save, first thing I notice is the ridiculous amount of crap on high wages. I sold some players and terminated Torres' loan, to get the wages down to 1.2m and put an extra £15m in the kitty.

Because of the lack of European football, I think I'll buy some younger players and give them game time to hopefully prepare for season 2. Bids made for Belotti, Monteleone, Moncini, Valotti. Also might give the like of Calabria game time to see how quickly he can develop.

Might try El Sha as a lone striker due to him and Bonaventura being in the same position, early days!

[PeterPistola]

Hachim Mastour midway 2nd season

[james_wilko]

Cheers Peter, I can pick him up for 4.5mil so I think I'll be taking the risk on him.

[PeterPistola]

Who's that Mastour ??? No one on any forum has good stats on him, cause Milan AI never played him enough. I'm gonna keep him at least ill he's 21-22 and if he reaches maximum potential and good enough I'll keep if not, I'll sell. Like Humam Tariq, huge potential but isn't playing well, and I'm probably not playing him enough so his ability may've stalled. But he's just not fitting in so in January he's gone and I'll promote one of my new-gens as a 3rd back up AMC to Kingsley Coman and Hachim Mastour.

[calcal]

Evening Gents!

Just in pre-season in my 1st season! Been A while since I played an Milan save (I reckon CM 01/02) So thought id join in!

Transfer wise I have sold - Abate for 9 million to Monaco

De Jong to Roma for 8 million

Montolivo to Sociedad for 7 million

Also shifted Mexes,Bonera and and Zaccardo.

Transfers in (Not as much as some I have seen posted) - Balanta - 7 million

Dele Alli - 3.5 million (Loaned back to MK Dons)

Matteo Darmian - 6.5 million

Martin Odegaard on A compensation deal joining in January

Looking at William Carvalho atm too? But promoted Mastour so think I might just throw him in at the deep end!

I play A 3-5-2 with wingbacks so I am buying players to fit that! (Im tactically stubborn).

Quite impressed with some of the youth already here? Calabria looks decent, Mastalli shows as 4.5 star potential! Mastour obviously is brilliant.

Looking forward to trying to forge the new era of Milan's dominance!!

[joep724]

Recently resigned from my post at Sporting (Portugal) after winning the league in the first season I made the mistake of not selling people that wanted to leave which caused the squad harmony to dip, Although I was still winning the games I could sense the board we probably going to sack me so left before I was pushed.

Managed to join Milan only a few months after resigning with them languishing in 14th after 7-8 games and after deciding upon a 4-2-3-1 formation we hit form and now feel as if this is one of my favourite saves on any FM.

The club brought in Hernandez before I joined the club for £5.5mil which has turned out to be one of the best bargains possible! In the first season he went on to score 39 goals in 52 appearances, 30 of them making him top scorer in the league. And far from a one season wonder he currently has 28 goals in 24 appearances in what I hope to be my first full season in charge.

Somehow managed to snap up Tielmans on a free! Zouma and Jese on loan, Timo horn to replace an ageing homesick Diego Lopez and Alex Sandro from porto to replace Lucas Digne who went back to PSG a season after he left for £49.5 mil !

Trying to get a few youngsters in and am currently seeking a new future centre back partnership as currently Rami and Zapata are pushing 30 and have seen red a few times in my short time in charge, I’ve approached to sign Nastasic from City with his contract running out and am delighted he has accepted but need another big but mobile Centre back to partner him due to the way I play.

[calcal]

Had A brilliant start to the season!

Played 7 won 5 drew 2 - Just beat Juve 2-1 at their gaff to!

Signed Depay and play in up top? Hes played 7 scored 6 with 2 assists! He's been insane!

Has anyone tried signing Scuffet? They want like 30+ million

[PeterPistola]

Yea I bought Scuffet, but I used instalments. Over 48 months, another great GK I have is Mattia Perin. They're both amazing. I rotate every second game with them as they are both amazingly good.

[nWoTrezeguet]

So, my Fifth Season has ended, and it ended and i can't stop enjoying my save. We went 34 games without a defeat. 30 wins and 4 draws, sadly that amazing run ended because i had to needed to do a total rotation looking at the games we had after that game. Sold my 2 players that i loved and i recommend to everybody. Manolo Gabbiadini went to Chelsea for 52M and Lacazette went to United for 60M... And it payed off pretty well.

The Team

Goalkeeper - Maxym Koval - 52 games - 40 goals conceded - 25 clean sheets - 7.02 Average Rating

Complete Wing Back - Sime Vrsaljko - 38 games - 5 assists - 7.54 Average Rating

Central Defender - Adil Rami - 44 games - 5 goals - 7.32 Average Rating

Central Defender - Eder Alvarez Balanta - 37 games - 6 goals - 1 assist - 7.54 Average Rating

Complete Wing Back - Alex Telles - 47 games - 1 goal - 1 assist - 7.49 Average Rating

Half Back - Matias Kranevitter - 34 games - 2 goals - 1 assist - 7.13 Average Rating

Ball Winning Midfielder - Support - Sergi Roberto - 41 games - 11 goals - 7 assists - 7.39 Average Rating (A lot of games he played as the RPM)

Roaming Playmaker - Pierre-Emile Højbjerg - 25 games - 6 goals - 10 assists - 7.32 Average Rating

Trequartista - Ben Wagstaff - 30 games - 14 goals - 18 assists - 7.69 Average Rating

Shadow Striker - Munir - 47 games - 29 goals - 18 assists - 7.71 Average Rating

Advanced Forward - Carlos - 39 games - 31 goals - 17 assists - 7.65 Average Rating

(Other Key Players)

Youri Tielemans - 19 games (12 started from the bench) - 4 goals - 12 assists - 7.24 Average Rating

Andrea Poli - 30 games - 5 goals - 3 assists - 7.19 Average Rating

Richairo Zivkovic - 23 games (19 started from the bench - 26 goals - 8 assists - 7.20 Average Rating

The Tactic

Full Calendar.

As you can see, we had an amazing season... We were close to reach the glory that we all want. But it was not to be.

Champions League - The Final.

It was maybe the lack of experience from some of the kids upfront and two errors from Rami and Vrsaljko that cost us the win in the final...

Serie A

Third Serie A title in five seasons. Incredible stuff.

Italian Cup

Fourth Italian Cup win in five seasons.

The Key Players

The idea is to bring a World Class Center Back to replace Rami who is already showed that he can still play in a great level, but made some errors trought the season that kinda cost us some games.

[PeterPistola]

Reached Feburary in my second season, sitting firmly on top of the table with 22 games played. 6 points ahead of both Inter and Juventus, with the latter having a game in hand.

El Shaarawy is not having a consistent season as last year but Memphis Depay. OH MY GAWD !?!?!? He was runner up in World Player of the Year and won World Footballer of the Year and is still playing like a beast. 18 appearances this season in the league, 6 goals and 20….. Yes 20 assists and it's only February. Not to mention he doesn't take corners either.

In January we had to sell 3 players…….. Alex Teixeria to Zenit for £20M (Made £10M on him in just 6 months). He was complaining about a lack of first team football despite only wanting to be a backup when I first signed him. Second to go was Alex to Udinese for £500K. Just like his Brazilian teammate (Alex Teixeria) he too wanted first team football, but due to Adil Rami's fine form and Romagnoli progressing wonderfully in training, I couldn't guarantee him to be in the starting XI week in week out. Not to mention, he was getting old and his stamina was quite low. He could barely back up 2 games in 7 days. And finally the last to go was Gabriel "Gabigol" Barbosa. Bayern Munchen signed him for his release fee which was £44M. I didn't want to loose him as I was worried that I wouldn't have enough quality to see me through Champions League group stage let alone contending for the title. But that hasn't mattered one bit.

I've brought in Malcom from Corinthians for £11M. He is a right winger who can also play up front or in the middle. So he's my Bonaventura / Alex Teixeria. He has a lot of potential to fill.

And final signing is Balde Keita from Lazio for £20.5M.

We toped our group in the Champions League by goal difference….

And we're into the semi finals again of the Coppa Italia after defeating Roma 4-0. We now take on Cagliari in the Semi Final which is brilliant, we should surely do a number on them without any problem. Especially in being over 2 legs, a one off game anything can happen in FM, but over 2 legs this should be a formality.

[fyrefuze]

@nWoTrezeguet - Udinese and Lazio too good to get relegated. What happened??

[nWoTrezeguet]

Udinese got the win against me in that season, wich was the match that i decided that i had to change things up and then went into a 34 games unbeaten run... I really don't know what happened to Udinese, they just got that win against me and they did absolutely horrible after that. 6 games have been played in the Serie B, and Udinese are 19th...

In the past seasons they finished:

14/15 season - 6th

15/16 season - 10th

16/17 season - 10th

17/18 season - 11th

It was a pretty pretty hard fall...

Meanwhile, i don't know what happened with Lazio, but here is how they finished every season, they are now 2nd in the Serie B

14/15 season - 11th

15/16 season - 5th

16/17 season - 8th

17/18 season - 13th

And then got relegated... Is pretty weird.

[Stevenleharve]

Finished with an extremely enjoyable Nottingham forest save, but after failing to conquer Europe I have decided to start anew with a struggling Milan side. Hopefully I can master the European stage here, with my increased experience

Transfers 14/15:

Basically want to use the first season to assess who is for the chopping block. Brought in a lot of staff so probably for the best that I keep the squad as familiar as possible.

[vasilli07]

@Stevenleharve, strange that you let Muntari go on a free. You will have to fork out the full compensation from your transfer budget.

[Stevenleharve]

@Stevenleharve, strange that you let Muntari go on a free. You will have to fork out the full compensation from your transfer budget.

I just wanted rid of him. Like having a smaller group of players, and he wasn't a part of my plans. Besides, I used the in-game editor to terminate his contract. Pretty much the only thing I ever use it for.

Transfers (January Included) 14/15:

In case you're wondering... I am paying for Aboubakar over 48 months, well £20m of it anyway. I'll likely be broke in the next transfer window unless I sell someone for a lot of cash. I had to buy him though. I was playing El-Shaarawy as a poacher and he was fantastic. My game crashed a few times which really cost me this season. I had just beaten Verona 5-0 after Christmas and Savitskiy scored four on his debut. El-Shaarawy grabbed the other to claim his 16th goal of the season, was on a real roll, then game crashed. Had to go back like a month to my last save. First match after loading up again El-Shaarawy gets injured and doesn't score another goal all season. Heartbreaking. Thankfully Aboubakar came up trumps to score 14 in 13 games in the second half of the season. Sad though because I may have to sell El-Sharaawy now as he's injured every other game and I'll need money in the Summer window. Pity, as I was building my team around him and De Sciglio

Anyway,

League Table 14/15:

Proud of my team but such a shame getting so close and not being able to grab the title. Went into the last game level with Juve on 80pts. At HT in the final game of the season, we were 0-0 at home to a struggling Udinese, and Juventus were 1-0 down to Fiorentina. I thougt the miracle was on. Wasn't to be. Juve went out and blitzed Fiorentina 4-1 and we whimpered to a lacklustre 0-0. I think if El-Shaarawy hadn't got injured we'd have won the title by 6-10 points. All because the game crashed at the worst possible time Still, I'm excited at having Aboubakar for a full season and perhaps nursing El-Shaarawy back to his best during the Summer break.

Just noticed,

****in' right doggy! Romagnoli here I come

[joep724]

Hey just thought I’d continue to let people know where I’m at with Milan.

I love the foundations already in place at AC, although no longer of the top few teams in Europe, they have a great youth set up a good fan base and potential for one of the best league attendances in Europe, this Making it a great club to bring back glories from not too long ago.

To compete with the big boys of Europe I knew that I needed to bring some youth into the side as well as keeping the finances in check, For this I decided no matter who the player if the offer was good enough I would sell and replace with players for a fraction of the sale such as the transfer dealings below.

2015/2016

• Sime Vrsaljko- £5.25m from Sassulo- sold to Man City for £30mil in 2017/2018

• Lucas Digne- £10.25m from PSG- 2016/1017-sold back to PSG for £49.5m in 2016/2017

• Sergio Canales- £8.5m From Real Sociedad- sold to Bayern for £40m in 2016/1017

2016/2017

• Jeff Louis- £12.75m to replace Canales from Standard- Sold to City for £55mil in 2017/2018

These money making sales as well as shifting some of the dead would brought in by previous management it was important to replace the players that had been let go without overspending, whilst getting in players who would at the very least let us compete with the best teams in Europe.

• Andreas Pereira for free 2015/2016

• Javier Hernandez for £5.5m from Man UTD 2015/2016

• Youri Tielmans for free 2016/2017

• Jese on loan from madrid 2016/2017

• Zouma on loan from Chelsea 2016/2017

• Timo Horn £10.75m from Koln 2016/2017

• Alex Sandro £24m from Porto 2016/2017

• Matija Nastasic for free from Man City 2017/2018

• Facundo Ferreyra for £10m from Barcelona 2017/2018

• Yann M’Vila for £2.7m from Juventus 2017/2018

• Callum Chambers for £24.5m from Arsenal 2017/2018

These accompanied with a few regens being created in the youth system and transfers have guided us to 3 league wins in a row 2 Italian cups and a champions league in the last 3 seasons, We are now in a great place financially as well with the balance currently standing at £214m just before the 2018/2019 season. Although this will decrease over the next month or so due to players such as Wanyama coming in for £16m from rivals Juventus.

Now on to the uncertain, I’m currently using a 4-2-3-1 formation with one AMC and 2 wide players.

Having just sold Jeff Louis to City I’m unsure whether to replace him or let the youngsters battle for the AMC position between themselves? The 3 youngsters in question are all 20 or younger, one of them is Mastour who has played well when given the chance but seems to be very injury prone, and the other 2 are regens one whom is an 18 year old with 3 star potential and fairly decent stats and the other is 16 and highly rated by my coaching staff at 5 stars.

Although I want a young squad I worry that they are all too young as I need to keep up with the other teams, and although I have made a great profit from selling Louis I feel as If I should re-invest part of that money for a player between 20-25 years old that is already a player that can win me games against the big teams ?

The AMC position is an advanced playmaker on attack and any advice would be great thanks.

[PeterPistola]

Kingsley Coman. May take 6 months to settle into your team despite already being established in Italy with Juventus. Well, that's how long it took him to gel for me. I ended up selling to Arsenal for £37M……. £7M more then what I paid for him, but I had to to keep my budget intact. I'm now using 2 regens myself for the AMC (S) along with my starter Hachim Mastour. I have faith that he'll become amazing, and hopefully I'll be the first to achieve that. As no-one else has managed it yet, well I've yet to see it anywhere on any forum.

[Sir_Frosinone]

I'm in my 4th season and mastour still useless and still 5 star potential.

Menez was completely amazing in the RDM position

[Morti666]

I'm about to start my fourth season and have a similar issue. I have a budget of 70 Mil and I think I'm looking for an attacking midfielder. I have bonaventura and mastour and giovinco. I could sign ozil for 50 Mil, or Fred or angel correa for considerably less. I also have the chance to sign Oliver. Any suggestions? Is ozil worth 50 Mil?

[vasilli07]

Isn't Ozil near to 30 years old in the 4th season? I certainly won't pay 50m for a 30 yo player unless he is 1 of your fav player.

[Morti666]

He's 28. Only going to be playing the save for another couple of seasons before the update. Has anyone used ozil?

[Sir_Frosinone]

I can't recommend Cabella highly enough he is amazing

[Morti666]

I looked at him but having just signed kondogbia, didn't want to get any more French players. Does anyone have any experience with Fred?

[Harryseaess]

Just got taken over by a wealth businessman in January of the 3rd season, hope he pumps loads of money in.

[Morti666]

Ended up signing James Rodriguez for 48 million. About to start my fourth season, first one in the champions league.

[dan99]

Just started a Milan save (added the Suso, Cerci & Torres deal in the editor before I started). Shocked at how high some of the players wages were. Luckily most of them weren't on long contracts so I was able to move them on. Average age of the team was way too high for my liking. Noticed quite a few of the players are a bit injury prone as well.

Transfers:

Lots of players in, even more out. The only signing over the age of 23 was Ricardinho, as I was a bit short at left back after terminating Pablo Armero's loan. Splashed out Martial after I missed out on Zaza. Needed a young forward, and he has lots of potential.

Even after all the transfers in, my weekly wage bill is down £370,000. That's £19,240,000 a year saved. More than covers for the £15m "transfer debt" I racked up (monthly instalments for players).

[smallclone]

Got offered the Milan job in my 3rd season. Said yes and took over the reigns with the squad in the most desperately bad state and the team languishing 21st in Serie A in November. Other than wings I had no real quality and an ageing squad. I managed to win the Italian cup and come 7th, which was a real achievement. Not that the fans or chairman recognised it.

So I've set about trying to rebuild the club from top to bottom.

I have signed:

Kyle Walker, Martins-Indi, Nuri Sahin, a young keeper, Paulo Dybala, Youri Teilemans, Samir Nasri

Playing 4-3-2-1. Wish me luck.

[fyrefuze]

Just started a Milan save (added the Suso, Cerci & Torres deal in the editor before I started). Shocked at how high some of the players wages were. Luckily most of them weren't on long contracts so I was able to move them on. Average age of the team was way too high for my liking. Noticed quite a few of the players are a bit injury prone as well.

Transfers:

Lots of players in, even more out. The only signing over the age of 23 was Ricardinho, as I was a bit short at left back after terminating Pablo Armero's loan. Splashed out Martial after I missed out on Zaza. Needed a young forward, and he has lots of potential.

Even after all the transfers in, my weekly wage bill is down £370,000. That's £19,240,000 a year saved. More than covers for the £15m "transfer debt" I racked up (monthly instalments for players).

Some nice transfers out there. interesting to see you could recoup such good values shifting your dead wood out.

[Gandy]

Got offered the Milan job in my 3rd season. Said yes and took over the reigns with the squad in the most desperately bad state and the team languishing 21st in Serie A in November. Other than wings I had no real quality and an ageing squad. I managed to win the Italian cup and come 7th, which was a real achievement. Not that the fans or chairman recognised it.

There's only 20 teams in Serie A though?

[smallclone]

There's only 20 teams in Serie A though?

Just testing. 19th I meant.

[Gandy]

Just testing. 19th I meant.

Ahh

[Cedrik]

Also started with Milan, really liking this thread as well their current situation in real life (struggling - makes it a challenge for FM).

Looking to bring Milan back to the team they once were with Pirlo, Kaka, Sheva and Inzaghi. Really liked those days.

Don't think I will bring in much players as they already have quite a huge squad imo, mostly looking to play a 5-3-2 in Conte's style as I think that will really suit the team.

Not sure how this save will go (busy times) but hoping for the best

[kubo]

Hey guys,

just finished my first season with Milan and thought I should do a write up. Usually I prefer to manage mid sized clubs (Tottenham, Hamburg, Sevilla, etc) and take on the elite, but there's a certain lure in trying to bring a stumbling giant back on their feet. I like to add some kind of restriction/challenge too, just to keep it interesting, so for this save the rule is simple: cento per cento italiano. I'm only allowed to sign italian players, and I have to sell our foreigners as soon as I find suitable replacements. Can we end Juve's Serie A dominance and conquer Europe with an all italian squad? No idea, let's find out.

TRANSFERS

Manolo Gabbiadini, 22, ST© [€6m from Sampdoria + €4.25m from Juventus]

Danielle Baselli, 22, M© [€8m from Atalanta]

Out

Nigel de Jong [€10m to PSG]

Philippe Mexes [€500k to Marseille]

Fernando Torres & Marco van Ginkel [loans terminated]

January

Angelo Ogbonna, 26, D© [€4.5m from Juventus] replaced Alex [€1m to Monaco]

SERIE A

We were hard to beat in the league, but not clinical enough in front of goal. Despite an almost shocking lack of creativity in the squad (how can a club go from Pirlo and Kaka to Muntari and Essien?) we did just enough to keep up with the chasing pack - without ever really threatening to win the scudetto. We lost just once in our first 22 games, including a run of nine clean sheets in ten, but then we suddenly started shipping goals left, right and centre. In the end we needed an injury time winner against Fiorentina on the last day of the season to secure forth place and european qualification. It's funny, we could have given away all three points to Viola just to deny Inter the league title, but this club should be above such shenanigans.

1 Inter 80p +39

2 Juventus 80p +49

3 Fiorentina 78p +39

4 Milan 74p +34

5 Lazio 73p +21

6 Roma 73p +29

COPPA ITALIA

One word: Horrible. Despite the arrangers for some reason favouring the big sides (why do we automatically play at home against smaller clubs? Makes no sense) we messed up badly. After defeating Pro Vercelli witout problems we lost at home to eventual serie B-relegatees Carpi, 1-4! A truely disgraceful effort from our team, no matter if it included a couple of reserves. The only saving grace is that the board doesn't care about the coppa so at least it didn't get me fired.

SQUAD

Pretty happy with our individual perfomances. A bit more creativity from central midfield might have turned a couple of draws into wins, but defence was good and attack too. Some key players:

Diego Lopez, 31 games, 14 clean sheets, 6.99

Adil Rami, 30 games, 4 goals, 7.13

Stephan El Shaarawy, 17(10), 9 goals, 5 assists, 7.16

Jerémy Menez, 21(1), 9 goals, 4 assists, 7.22

Giacomo 'MVP' Bonaventura, 36(1), 14 goals, 9 assists, 8 PoM, 7.36

Manolo Gabbiadini, 33(4), 19 goals, 13 assists, 7.06

YOUTH

I'm planning on giving youth ample opportunities, so it was nice to see our kids dominate Italy. We won the U20 league, the U18 league and the prestigous Torneo di Viareggio. Invidually we have to mention young Zakaria Hamadi who scored three goals for the senior side - all game-winning - thus earning us a cool six points on his own. Boy looks more exciting than Hachim Mastour in my eyes.

FUTURE PLANS

There's a small chance the squad could be 100% italian as early as next season. We should have enough squad depth with exciting youth coming through and some home-growns returning (Nocerino, I'm looking at you). I'm planning to use the kids to a large extent in the Europa League, so that should be exciting.

But we need some quality additions to challenge for the scudetto, not least if we have to replace the french. At right wing Cercio or Candreva (if we can afford him) should be just as good if not better than Menez, but I have no frikking idea how to replace Rami - the true leader of our defense. At least we shouldn't have to worry about the goalkeeping spot for the next decade: once Genoa got relegated we swooped in for Mattia Perin, so I'm glad that's sorted.

[Cas46]

I've been doing similar to you kubo. I started with the intention of using only Milan home grown youth team players but I had to abandon that as the players I got in the youth team were such bobbins for the first 3 seasons or so. I played the first season with some massively average players and were relegated in 19th place I think, got sacked a couple of times I think before just taking over again with a new manager. Second season we got promoted in 2nd in Serie B still with only Milan home grown players. That meant we had some decent players like De Sciglio (although he was awful at this point), Abate, Albertazzi, Darmian, Antonelli, Paloschi (goal machine) and young guys like Mastour, Petagna etc. Bryan Cristante was also resigned.

Anyway since realising it would take forever for Milan to actually produce some more half decent players I decided to allow myself to sign Italians, first season back in Serie A we finished 4th and got back in the Champions League and won the Coppa Italia against Napoli in a miracle game. Antonelli got himself sent off early for no obvious reason, Napoli finally scored after 70 odd minutes before somehow we went on the attack and scored twice in the last 10 minutes with 10 players. Just over half way through the next season now which is going well, there's a 3 way title battle between ourselves, Juve and Inter and we have Feyenoord in the last 16 of the CL after topping our group which included defending champions Chelsea. We were knocked out of the Coppa in the QF's by Napoli on penalties this time after playing some young guys.

My squad off the top of my head is something like this:

GK:

Colombi

DF:

Albertazzi, Astori, Darmian, Ely, De Sciglio, Calabria, Murru, Jakupi(newgen)

MF:

Verratti, Cristante, Castellano, Sturaro, Grassi, Pugliese

FW:

Paloschi, Longo, Petagna, Belotti

Mastour was bought by Chelsea for 21.5m (release clause), not too bothered as he had already reached his PA and was no better than ok. We are playing a genuine 4-3-3 with 3 strikers which is working well with 2 attacking full backs in De Sciglio who is playing much better now and Jakupi who is only 19 but will be an absolute tank on the left. Cristante has license to get forward from midfield and has 9 goals I think from there already this season. Targets who I would like to sign but are too expensive right now include Romagnoli, Berardi and El Sharaawy who I obviously sold at the start of the game.

[kubo]

I've been doing similar to you kubo. I started with the intention of using only Milan home grown youth team players but I had to abandon that as the players I got in the youth team were such bobbins for the first 3 seasons or so. I played the first season with some massively average players and were relegated in 19th place I think, got sacked a couple of times I think before just taking over again with a new manager. Second season we got promoted in 2nd in Serie B still with only Milan home grown players. That meant we had some decent players like De Sciglio (although he was awful at this point), Abate, Albertazzi, Darmian, Antonelli, Paloschi (goal machine) and young guys like Mastour, Petagna etc. Bryan Cristante was also resigned.

Haha, that's insane! Or dedicated, I guess.

Going exclusively home-grown can be a fun concept, but I'm not sure a club of AC Milan's history and stature is the best choice.

[rGade]

In love with Tielemans on this game. Averaging a whopping 8.44 in 20 games so far this season (2016/17) in Serie A, scoring 5 goals and setting up another 10. Checked the "key passes" stat for the league, and he's currently sitting in 1st with 178(!) followed by Memphis Depay (also in my squad) 62. So, so ridiculous.

Depay is doing pretty well too with 27 goals and 10 assists in 21 league games, averaging 8.11.

Do any of you guys find that the competition from Juventus quickly fades, as they are very harsh on their managers and are not afraid of sacking them? They're currently on their 3rd manager since I started this save, and we're only in January of 2017. I got super lucky in the first season winning the league by 4 points (only because of their poor form towards the end and my team miraculously being able to scrape home draws when I was behind, even very late in the games), but they won the Supercup and Allegri still got the boot immediately after I won the title. Napoli and Roma are doing okay-ish, but aren't really challenging me either, so it's becoming a bit boring. I just hope Juventus will begin gaining some momentum again, because I really shouldn't be leading the league by 11 points after 21 rounds when you look at Juventus' team which still has your Vidal, Pogba, Chiellini, Tevez, Berardi, a 39 year old Buffon with no plans for retirement and the addition of Januzaj (who we all know is a god on FM, even though he really shouldn't be that good)

[kubo]

The revolution is done! After a hectic summer, our first team squad is now 100% italian. The only deal I thought twice about was Adil Rami. I couldn't find anyone as good to replace him (Juventus wouldn't let Bonucci go despite desperate offers of €65m) but when he started moaning about the sale of the moderately talented Benedicic, it just felt right to let him go. Instead of a proven replacement for Rami I've signed two talented 20-somethings, hopefully one of them can grow into a proper partner to Angelo Ogbonna. The only worry is that Ogbonna wants us to strengthen the squad after the sale of Diego Lopez. Apparently, he doesn't see what everyone else sees in Mattia Perin.

Maybe the best "signing" of them all. I have no idea what's gotten into this old grafter - but I sure like it!

Do any of you guys find that the competition from Juventus quickly fades, as they are very harsh on their managers and are not afraid of sacking them?

Don't know about Juve in particular, but I'm at the christmas break in season two and the competition at the top is freaking relentless. At this rate, one sorry club will take 85 points but don't even make the CL places.

[Vizzini]

Started a save with A.C. Milan as well, bit of a challenge, and so fun in classic mode. Played half through the first season, it was going swell, until I met the old lady.

Transfers in & out:

Tactic:

Results so far:

League standings:

Roberto Perreyra coming in on a free in the summer, Dybala aswell, after I loaned him back to Palermo for a year, going to cancel Torres loan in the summer even though he's been pretty good so far.