Icon says selling star man to Newcastle has made former club a far better team

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One former Serie A boss thinks AC Milan have become an even stronger team after selling star midfielder Sandro Tonali to Premier League giants Newcastle United in a £60 million deal. 

When Newcastle United saw their club-record bid accepted back in July, it’s fair to say there were some rather probing questions being asked about Milan’s ambitions.

Why sell such an important, popular player at a time in which you were planning to snatch the Scudetto crown back off the head of usurpers Napoli? 

Well, a 100 per cent start to the new campaign – three wins out of three so far – has done quite a good job of answering those questions. With the £60 million earned via Sandro Tonali’s sale, Milan invested heavily in Christian Pulisic, Tijjani Reijnders, Yunus Musah, Samu Chukwueze and Noah Okafor.  

Tonali may have gone. But this is a stronger, deeper, more well-rounded Milan squad this days.

Newcastle sign Sandro Tonali from AC Milan

“I really like Milan’s project,” legendary Romanian Mircea Lucescu, who had a spell in the Inter dugout in the late-1990s, tells Tuttosport.  

“By selling Tonali, (Milan) has been able to rebuild the team, making it even more competitive than last year. At the moment I see the two Milanese teams a step above the others (in Serie A), but the season is long.”

In a rather mixed start to life in his new Tyneside home, Tonali earned plenty of plaudits after a goalscoring debut in the 5-1 hammering of Aston Villa but has since come in for a bit of criticism, Newcastle legend Alan Shearer among those who questioned his defensive acumen during the 3-1 reverse to an Evan Ferguson-inspired Brighton and Hove Albion outfit before the international break. 

A mixed start

“From Newcastle’s point of view, there were so many errors leading up to (Ferguson’s first) goal,” Shearer sighed on Match of the Day. “There is the first one, it has got to go (out of play).  

“It’s so sloppy from Nick Pope. Then it’s (Kieran) Trippier diving in. Then, another mistake from Tonali and it was lazy on his part not to close it down, then another big error from Nick Pope. What’s that? Four errors leading up to the goal?”