5 AC Milan Players of the Last 10 Years Who Never Won over the Fans

In recent years Milan have endured a gradual decline, not only in performance but also in prestige.

As the club has fallen away from the top of Serie A, their ability to bring in the world's best players has also taken a knock, with years of underachievement laced by a spate of underperformers.

These players never truly caught the imagination of the Milan fans. Some were past their best, some suffered from injuries and some were never good enough in the first place. All left their mark—but not for the right reasons.

Here are five Milan players to have played for the team since 2005 who failed to win over the Milanisti.

Yoann Gourcuff

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Yoann Gourcuff was viewed as one of the finest talents of his generation when he joined Milan from Rennes in 2006. Tall, elegant and French, the young attacking midfielder was inevitably compared to Zinedine Zidane, but he ultimately failed to live up to such grand expectations with the Rossoneri.

In two seasons with Milan, he was unable to hold down a regular first-team place and found himself back in France, with Bordeaux, by 2008.

Gourcuff’s attitude and overall performance angered Milan legend Paolo Maldini. In 2010, Maldini told L’Equipe, (h/t Goal):

"

Gourcuff in Milan was 100 per cent wrong. His problem here was his behaviour. He did not show an intelligent way to manage himself. When he played here, he did not want to make himself available to the squad.

He did not start studying Italian immediately. He did not work. He was not always on time. It happened a lot. [There are] things he cannot say. But he knows what he did.

"

Now aged 29, Gourcuff is back with first club Rennes after being released by Lyon in the summer.

Mancini

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There was a time when lithe Brazilian wide man Mancini was one of the most exhilarating players in Serie A. With Roma, he was an explosive combination of flair, speed and quick feet, as evidenced by his stunning strike away to Lyon in the Champions League in 2007.

However, much of what had previously made him such a difficult man to stop had dissipated by the time he signed for Milan on loan. By that point, Mancini was 29 years old and had started just 17 games in 18 disappointing months with Inter.

Even Milan president Silvio Berlusconi expressed his confusion at Mancini’s arrival, telling the press, reported by Goal: “The acquisition of Mancini? I do not understand it."

Overweight, out of form and past his best, Mancini failed to impress Milanisti, making just seven appearances before departing the club.

Ricardo Oliveira

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Chelsea’s protracted pursuit of Milan hero Andriy Shevchenko successfully concluded on May 31, 2006, with the London club paying a fee of £30.8 million to acquire the Ukrainian’s prized goalscoring services.

The move left Milan with a 20 goal a season-sized gap in their strike force, which they attempted to fill by bringing in Ricardo Oliveira from Real Betis. Unfortunately, the Brazilian simply was not up to the task.

Milan raised eyebrows by spending €17.5 million to capture the striker, who had been La Liga’s top scorer with a 22-goal haul in 2004/05. Clearly, they had ignored worrying signs prevalent in Oliveira’s less productive second year with Betis, most of which was spent injured or on loan at Sao Paulo.

Oliveira scored on his Milan debut but netted a mere two more goals in 25 further league appearances before moving back to Spain with Real Zaragoza. He never came close to filling the void left by Shevchenko’s sale.

Amazingly, he was recently recalled to the Brazil national team following good form with Santos at the age of 35, a decision Brazilian Milanisti would've no doubt been scratching their heads over.

Philippe Senderos

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In the early 2000s, Milan were famed for their injury-prevention techniques. Thanks to Jean-Pierre Meersseman and his MilanLab, they were able to extend players’ careers, allowing the likes of Paolo Maldini, Alessandro Nesta and Clarence Seedorf to play on well into their 30s.

It was slightly ironic, then, that Philippe Senderos, who joined the club on loan from Arsenal in 2008 in a bid to rejuvenate his stalling career, would find his time at Milan hampered by injuries.

Less than two weeks after signing, Senderos picked up a thigh problem and from then on struggled to establish himself in the team. Milan chose not to sign him permanently, and the Switzerland international’s career has since been pockmarked by further injury issues.

Christian Vieri

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Despite being an Inter legend, Christian Vieri’s time with the Nerazzurri ended in relatively downbeat fashion. With his finishing prowess diminishing, he and the club reached a mutual agreement by which his contract was terminated in the summer of 2005. Milan stepped in and offered Vieri a chance to continue playing in the same city.

By this point in time, Vieri was almost 32 years old and past his peak, though he had scored double figures in Serie A in each of the past seven seasons. As the BBC reported, the deal came at the same time as Milan were linked with a move for another ex-Interista, Hernan Crespo.

Crespo had won over the fans, scoring some crucial goals for Milan while on loan from Chelsea the previous season, but the Rossoneri didn’t make his deal a permanent one. Instead, Vieri came in, scored two goals in 14 games and left midway through the season for Monaco in a failed bid to reignite his chances of representing the Azzurri at the 2006 World Cup.