Stefano Pioli once again has the task of galvanising his team after another disappointing result, one that the management was not best pleased with.
Milan missed the chance to make it five league wins in a row as they drew 2-2 with Bologna at San Siro on Saturday night, with Riccardo Orsolini striking the dagger blow from the penalty spot in added time.
As written in Pietro Mazzara’s latest column for MilanNews, Pioli admitted in his post-match press conference that he is worried about the ‘psychological repercussions’ that the draw with Bologna could have on the team.
Today at Milanello it will be his turn to speak to the players, but the presence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic will also be needed, who can and must be a point of reference in these situations.
Mazzara adds that the Milan management were not best pleased with the result at the weekend, because they ‘legitimately hoped’ to be able to continue the trend of victories and also close the gap to Juventus.
However, this did not happen and the feeling is that it will be a long time to get to May, sailing in third place and with the obligation to do very well in the Europa League.
Otherwise the 2023-24 season would be ‘a sporting failure’ in terms of results, with only the bare minimum achieved.
Only a bad coach has to worry about the “psychological repercussions” of a draw against Bologna when in 3rd place, well head of 4th and already out of the title race. Of course, Pioli’s Milan always seems to suffer psychologically when they drop a lead late, like against Roma last season. Hopefully we won’t go on a month long losing streak this time.
This team has been mentally fragile since the summer with the new arrivals. A lot of young players and not enough senior “stabilizers”. Isn’t this why Ibra was brought in? Because Pioli lacks that mental toughness approach?
This isn’t anything new. This is why we drop points from winning positions.
We are blaming this on the new signings? It’s the veterans that let us down. A new signing scored both goals. It was Giroud and Theo and Leao that let the team down here.
“This team has been mentally fragile since the summer with the new arrivals. ”
LOL. Remember January 2023? The squad was crumbling already back then so “accusing” the summer mercato is VERY biased.
The “mentally fragile” thing started when Zlatan went to the surgery and the issue has never been fixed since then.
EDIT: Let’s try again as the forum lost my previous post
We get it, you don’t like Pioli. But trying to blame him for this loss is a really weak argument. I guess he should go out there and take the penalties for the team. And it’s his fault that Leao missed a sitter and Kjaer missed a free header from 3 yards out. And that Maignan gets beat near post when he should never be beaten there. All Pioli’s fault, of course. Tactics weren’t bad, Milan should have had 4 goals easy. I don’t understand people that want to constantly make excuses for professional players that make millions, and put everything on the coach. There are legitimate reasons to criticize Pioli but this game is not one of them.
Well… There’s always the fact that Pioli took off Pulisic and replaced him with the reckless Terraciano who gifted Bologna the equalizing goal.
He took out an attacking player for a defensive player trying to protect a lead with 10 minutes left. Not so crazy of an idea. Did you know Terraciano was reckless before that? The last time he played everyone was praising him for doing well. Easy to second guess.
We get it, you don’t like Pioli. But trying to blame him for this loss is a really weak argument. I guess he should go out there and take the penalties for the team. And it’s his fault that Leao missed a sitter and Kjaer missed a free header from 3 yards out. And that Maignan gets beat near post when he should never be beaten there. All Pioli’s fault, of course. Tactics weren’t bad, Milan should have had 4 goals easy. I don’t understand people that want to constantly make excuses for professional players that make millions, and put everything on the coach. There are legitimate reasons to criticize Pioli but this game is not one of them.
Cant agree more, your comment is spot on !
“they ‘legitimately hoped’ to be able to continue the trend of victories and also close the gap to Juventus.”
They (whoerever they are) are living in an illusion. We just had many games in a row against cannon fodder teams who are just there for the taking, but once we face a slight live resistance we crumble.
Now I can’t talk too much about the Bologna game, even with all of our defensive mistakes we could have won it, but I see many thinking this team is improving or got better while we simply didn’t face a good side since Atalanta (who actually defeated us twice already).