Enough of this transfer window! Inter, Como and Lazio come out on top

In a world where good news is hard to come by, some good news has arrived. And that is that this second round of the league season has been the last one whilst the transfer window is still open. The transfer window will close this Tuesday, 1 September, at 8.00 pm.

Thank goodness, we can finally relax: because making sense of this constant comings and goings of teams packed with foreign players – often unknown and with unpronounceable names – is truly a Herculean task. An arduous and often pointless task. Take Juventus, for example, who beat Parma thanks to goals from the Argentine Nico Gonzalez (who wants to join Atlético Madrid) and the much-maligned Teun Koopmeiners, who has long been on the list of players set to leave. Meanwhile, whilst waiting for the enigmatic Kolo Muani and the much-anticipated young gem Alajbegovic to come into their own, it emerged that Kessie has returned to Atalanta. Farewell, Bianconeri friends – I prefer Bergamo.

And what will become of the unpresentable David, a ghost on the pitch against Parma, who also has his bags packed? It seems Atlético still want him. And what about this Pape Matar Sarr, a 24-year-old Senegalese, touted as the midfielder of the future? We’ll have to wait and see. Whichever way you look at it, it’s chaos. A chaos in which the poor ‘ordinary’ fan – not the one lounging on the sofa watching Sky and DAZN – no longer knows which way to turn. He looks at the line-up of his favourite team and gets lost in names that are a tangle of unpronounceable consonants.

They may well all be excellent players, mind you, but we need to assess them properly first, before we can possibly grow fond of them. Let’s look at Milan, who – having put last year’s debacle behind them – have actually secured maximum points after two matches. It’s true that they beat Torino first and then Venezia – teams that aren’t exactly rock-solid. However, as the wise man said, it’s better to start with a win than a loss – the latter being a possibility that, as we saw last year under Allegri, cannot be ruled out as the season progresses.

The problem with Milan, however, is that there’s a lot of comings and goings within the club, just like in the centre of Mumbai at rush hour. Whilst Leao was leaving for Galatasaray for 38 million (isn’t that a bit on the low side?), the new centre-forward Goncalos Ramos, who cost 70 million (isn’t that a bit on the high side?), led the Rossoneri to victory over Venezia by scoring the opening goal with a superb diagonal strike. Previously, Ramos – also Portuguese, like Leao – had squandered a couple of chances, raising fears of the worst. But in the end he redeemed himself, sending the Milan fans into raptures; they’ve been searching for a proper goalscorer ever since Giroud’s days. What can one say? Well done to Ramos for not giving in to despair, but before hailing him as the Rossoneri’s saviour (“San Siro already mad about him”, headlines *La Gazzetta dello Sport*), it’s best to tread carefully. Meanwhile, Milan are also reported to be set to sign the Englishman Omari Hutchinson, a 22-year-old attacking midfielder well known to Amorim, the Rossoneri manager with the dazzling smile. He, too, of course, is Portuguese.