Milan centre-half Alessandro Nesta says the club’s financial outlay on stars such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Robinho made a difference in sealing the Serie A title.
Milan began the season by bringing in Ibrahimovic, Robinho, Kevin-Prince Boateng and Sokratis Papastathopoulos before also adding Mark van Bommel and Antonio Cassano in January.
And although they hardly paid anything up front for those players, Ibrahimovic will eventually cost €24 million and Robinho €18 million.
And it is that kind of spending that Nesta believes is crucial to success.
“We won the title because we spent a lot of money,” he said. “There was a big gap to Inter but we invested a lot of money, their level dropped a bit and in the end we deserved to win, not least because we won our direct clashes with Inter and Napoli.”
Nesta, who has recently been given a new one-year contract, also paid tribute to coach Massimiliano Allegri, who won the title in his first season at the San Siro.
“He was very humble when he arrived, he set the rules and earned respect,” added Nesta. “And I think he was very good tactically, bringing in the new players in the right way.
“He stamped his mark on our title success. The second derby (a 3-0 win) and the match against Juventus in Turin (a 1-0 success) were the key games.”
Target
Meanwhile, Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani claimed yesterday that the Italian champions will buy a left half-winger before the start of next season.
Given that left half-wing is not a common position, Italian press have speculated that by that he intends to sign Napoli’s Slovakia midfielder Marek Hamsik.
But Galliani says that’s not the case. “Before August 31 we will sign a player who will be a left half-winger, who it will be, we shall see,” said Galliani.
“We cannot completely rule him out but we have never made an approach for Hamsik.”
Galliani was happy also to let his team be linked with any number of players for this peculiar position, including Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas, Tottenham’s Gareth Bale and Ghana midfielder Kwadwo Asamoah, who is at Udinese.
But he once again refuted interest in Palermo’s Argentina playmaker Javier Pastore.
“He (Asamoah) is a left half-winger but Hamsik and Fabregas can also play in this position, as can Bale. Pastore cannot.”
However, Galliani ruled out a big name signing like Fabregas on economic grounds.
“He’s too expensive. A well-informed management needs to find players before the other (big) clubs, like we did with Kaka, paying only seven million euros, otherwise you have to reduce yourself to poverty.”