[FM 13] The two manager brothers story...

Looking at what happened in these first months, we wish to give you our marks to the job of the two "manager brothers", as they are called now all over the world.

Stefano Gagliardo 10 (cum laude)
He acts carefully in the transfer window, reinforcing the team and adding young talented players. And the results are great! 11 wins in 11 matches, 1st position in Segunda B1 with 5 points more than Tenerife, 4th round to play in Copa del Rey against Levante. No one could be more confident on the job of the manager from Vado Ligure. Even if he flies low saying that "Our objective is to finish the league in a good position, do not speak about promotion!", Real Oviedo is hardly becoming a candidate to the promotion in Liga Adelante, thanks to the stunning performances of its two strikers, Diego Cervero and Manu Busto.

Andrea Gagliardo 7.5
He is the youngest and the one with the most difficult affair, the bench of A.C. Milan. But even if its away scores are not wonderful, his team conceded only 1 goal (a penalty) to the opponents in 9 matches and he is first in its Champions League group with 3 wins in 3 matches, and second in the Serie A with two points less than Juventus. If the team will grow up following his manager, and most of all Mario Balotelli and Stephan El Shaarawy will confirm the performances of the latest matches, we may see very good things!

Dear A.C. Milan supporters, welcome back on acmilanfmnews.com for the usual summing up of the month just finished. It has been the perfect month for our team, with 5 wins on 5 played matches! The man of the month is Mario Balotelli, that with his 4 goals allows Milan to end the month in the second position in Serie A, 2 points less than Juventus, and in the first position of its group in the Champions League, with 3 wins in 3 matches.

The penalty of Artem Milievskyi in the match against Dynamo Kyiv has been the first goal taken by A.C. Milan in this season after 8 official matches, with the team's goal that still remains unbeaten in Serie A.

Welcome to all A.C. Milan fans to the December monthly report of acmilanfmnews.com and Merry Christmas to everybody! This month, after the usual summary of what happened on the pitch, we will have a look to the future transfer window, helped by the words of an expert.

The year ends with A.C. Milan in the first place of the league after 16 matches, with 38 points, 2 more than Juventus, being the only team of Serie A that did not lose any match. Statistics say also that the team has the best defense (7 goals taken) and the 2nd best attack (31 goals scored, 7 less than Napoli).

The month started with maybe the best and the most important win of Andrea Gagliardo on the bench of Milan till now: the 4-1 defeat of Inter in the derby! Man of the match the long-awaited ex-Nerazzurri player, Mario Balotelli, that scored 2 goals. An excited Andrea commented immediately after the match: "I can't believe on what my players did today! They played the perfect match, dominating a very good team as Inter for the whole time! I am really amazed! This is my most beautiful win till now on this bench!"

Next in Serie A came another fundamental match, the one against Juventus at the Juventus Stadium! The fantastic penalty keep of Ben Forster after 8 minutes against the ex-Rossoneri, Andrea Pirlo, and the goal of Raul Albiol after 34 mins misleaded Milan’s supporters, disappointed after 68 mins by the goal of Mirko Vucinic: "For one hour we deserved the win, but then we switched off our minds and kept a goal that disappoints me and the team… But a draw at Juventus Stadium still remains a good result for us…" was the comment of Andrea in the post-match press-conference.

The next two serie A matches allows Milan to consolidate its first place in the league, thanks to the 1-1 home draw against Udinese and the great 4-2 win on Siena’s pitch. A special mention goes to Giampaolo Pazzini who scored 4 of the 5 goals in this two matches, with a stunning hat-trick against Siena.

In the other matches of the month, Milan easily won 1-0 against Celtic Glasgow in the last Champions League group match, consolidating the first place in the group.

Some days separate us from the next transfer window and we interviewed Gianluca Di Marzio, well-known expert of Sky and friend of our manager, Andrea Gagliardo, for having some news on the next moves of our team.
”Andrea shows to be happy about his players, but I think he has something different in his mind. Something is going to be moved both in the defense and in the attack of Milan. Looking at the defense, it is well-known his interest in Nicolas Nkoulou, that Olympique Marseille put on the transfer list. What scares Andrea is the price, that may be near 15M and, at this very time, Milan does not have enough money to try to achieve the player. Also because Andrea blocked almost two months ago two young African players, the Tunisian Tarek Trabelsi and the Cameroonian Ahmed Traorè. Both players are 19 and have French passport. The first is a left wing that can also play as a striker, the second is a center back and, in Andrea’s mind, will take the place of Mario Yepes, who is going to leave the team at the end of the year. Andrea is thinking about taking care by himself about the two players or sending them on loan to achieve experience, for example in a Serie B team. The two transfers required an amount of 1,75M. The rest of the budget seems to be addressed to the purchase of Stevan Jovetic: Andrea admires a lot the player that is not satisfied of the difficult situation of Fiorentina and is currently transfer listed. Milan and Fiorentina are close to end the transfer for an amount of about 13M plus some bonuses, 5M is the wage that should be earned by the player.”

Stevan Jovetic (23), who seems to be close to sign for A.C. Milan.