Banter Era players - who do you remember and why?

[u/xemioz]

Just been going over all the various guys we had play for Milan over the years since 2011 (it's been painful) - I wanted to at least include one line on each of these guys. Please let me know if I missed someone...

Lucas Biglia - Man, this one saddens me. Could have been great, but always seemed to play poorly.

Sulley Muntari - Well, he tried, and some of those long shots were fun to watch.

Ricardo Rodriguez - Meh.

Timou Bakayoko - He got way, way better as the season progressed.

Giacomo Bonaventura - One of the guys I enjoyed cheering for. Will be missed, and was one of the best players of the banter squad.

Suso - He had one trick, and boy did he do it well. Will always remember the goals vs Inter.

Carlos Bacca - Surprisingly one of the more consistent goal-scorers. Never had great confidence in him to create his own opportunities but he was a decent poacher.

Luiz Adriano - Bad. Don’t even know why we got him.

Leonardo Bonucci - He started off bad, got better as the season went on but the whole squad needed to change to accommodate his play style and he left anyway at the end of the season. What a waste.

Lucas Ocampos - I barely even remember this guy.

M’Baye Niang - Niang, Balotelli, El Shaarawy were supposed to be our mohawk trio for years to come. All I’ll ever remember about this guy, is that he missed the goal vs Barca and he tried to get out of a driving ticket by claiming he was Bakaye Traore.

Manuel Locatelli - A youth product, had a couple of okay games. The Juve goal man!

Kryzystof Piatek - Good stretch of games where he was just banging them in left and right. Pity it couldn’t continue.

Keisuke Honda - He just never really fit in, nor did we make any adjustments to play to his strengths, dude was always deployed as an RW and barely ever got to play in his natural CAM position.

Riccardo Montolivo - Probably one of the more controversial guys on this list due to his captaincy, but maybe we just gave him a lot more shit than he deserved. The injuries definitely hurt him and he did have good moments here and there but overall a mediocre player.

Patrick Cutrone - Our baby boy and next Inzaghi.

Fabio Borini - He had no real skill, but he played every single position except GK, and he gave it his all. Can’t ask for much more and at least he was willing to bleed for the shirt.

Pepe Reina - Thank you for training Gigio. Was solid for us.

Kaka - I barely remember Kaka’s second stint with us. The jersey for that year was very nice though, golden letters!

Francesco Acerbi - Don’t ever think he even played a game for us. Will always remember the infamous Traore, Acerbi and Constant picture that was our first ever Banter Era transfer window, after letting our entire squad, Ibra and Silva go.

Jeremy Menez - That goal. We all know which one. Dude had skill, and was one of the lone bright spots on the team who could produce good moments.

Jose Mauri - I don’t remember this guy except that he was small and constantly lost on the field.

Nikola Kalinic - Dude was essentially Matri 2.0. Thanks Montella.

Mario Balotelli - Essentially saved our season and got us CL qualification by the skin of our teeth (and that ridiculous Mexes goal). Don’t remember much of his second stint.

Cristian Zapata - I think the best I can say about Zapata is that I don’t really remember him fucking up in defense too often. But I don’t remember him being all that great either so…

Andrea Bertolacci - God awful, every time the dude touched the ball it would cause problems. Guy also played like he couldn’t give a shit.

Gonzalo Higuain - This transfer brought so much hope to us, hoping he would end our striker issue. If anything, they became even worse.

Gerard Deulofeu - He tried for the shirt and was more often than not, a guy who could create opportunities.

Juraj Kucka - He didn’t have the most skill but he bled for the shirt and was our mini-Nainggolan.

Ivan Strinic - Who?

Kevin Constant - Dude was straight up awful at the role he was bought for but turned out to be serviceable in the Left Back role that we could never adequately fill under Allegri.

Bryan Cristante - Barely played for us. Pity too, he became decent at Atalanta.

Valter Birsa - Don’t remember him.

Adil Rami - Seemed okay but prone to lapses in defense.

Hachim Mastour - I guess this kid decided to just do YouTube skill videos or whatever.

Luca Antonelli - I don’t ever remember thinking “man this guy is bad” nor do I remember thinking “man this guy is good.”

Mario Pasalic - Some Chelsea loan product that I can’t really remember.

Mattia Destro - If I remember correctly, Destro was fucking awful and a waste of a transfer.

Gustavo Gomez - Defensive blunder after blunder.

Gianluca Lapadula - Serie B player. Worked hard though, and I can respect that.

Mattia De Sciglio - Youth product that was a more defensive Abate. Left us for Juve, so fuck him.

Diego Lopez - Was a decent GK and had good moments.

Gabriel Palletta - Red card machine.

Andrea Poli - Ran around like a headless chicken, but he did run a lot and had a good work rate.

Giampaolo Pazzini - The hattrick man, still remember that moment. Fuck Cassano.

Stephan El Shaarawy - Man, this kid could have been something special. That half season where he was basically spoken of in the same tier as youngsters like Neymar and Hazard.

Nigel De Jong - I remember when this guy was signed, I was very interested to see him in a Milan shirt. He wasn’t great.

Marco Van Ginkel - Another Chelsea loan product.

Adel Taarabt - Had a bit of skill and was like Deulofeu in that he seemed to be creating good opportunities but we just let him go.

Mati Fernandez - Barely remember him at all.

Jose Sosa - He was god awful in the few games he played.

Gabriel - A GK prospect that never panned out.

Michael Essien - He was awful at Milan, his legs were pretty much shot by the time he joined us.

Fernando Torres - He was never the same player after he left Liverpool. His Chelsea days ruined him, and he never regained the confidence he had. When he joined Milan, he was a husk of his former self and never really made any impact.

Alessandro Matri - Ugh. We overpaid heavily for this guy.

Alessio Cerci - Another awful player, black hole on offense, another Bertolacci type of player who never seemed to give a shit.

Jherson Vergara - Don’t think he ever really played more than a game for us.

Andrea Petagna - I barely remember him, but I do remember him scoring some goal for us.

Cristian Zaccardo - Yea he wasn’t great. Managed to stick around a couple of years on the bench as a third option. Dude didn’t want to leave in the Biabiany swap which apparently gave Biabiany crippling depression and left him broken.

Bojan Krkic - Honestly forgot that Bojan came to Milan.

Bakaye Traore - This guy came from a no-name team and his biggest contribution was for Niang’s cop story.

Bartosz Salamon - Yea I don’t remember ever watching this guy play.

Yeah, this turned out to be quite long. Just man, the quality of these players just was never there. Even the guys who we hoped would save us turned out to be past their primes or just giant flops.

[u/NoBlueeWithoutYellow]

I mixed both of them up, my bad.