MN: 12 months, 3 coaches, 1 message – Milan’s continued issue goes past coaching

AC Milan have had three coaches in the past 12 months, and each has struggled with the same issue. An issue which is far greater than who is on the touchline.

It can be argued that Milan’s problems stretch further back than this season and last. However, that is a story for another day. Right now, the club are struggling to match ambitions, and the signs have been there for some time.

Having three coaches each suffering from similar problems is not uncommon, however, it rises above a coaching issue.

Yes, the Rossoneri are poor, but what is the root of the issue, because appointments have differed, so it leads to questions.

Milan News, today, claims it is an issue with the squad, and the reasoning for this is the words of the previous managers, supported by the frustrations of the Diavolo’s new head coach.

“In the first leg, we had lost 1-0. In the dressing room before the game, I gave a stirring speech, one of the most heartfelt ever. I was sure we would go through. Instead, the team achieved nothing and did little on the pitch. There I realised that what I was giving was no longer enough. The empathy had broken down.”

Firstly, we have Pioli’s words about the ending of his time at the club

“I know that I work every day to do well and teach the team. I don’t know if everyone in the team can say that. We have the ambition to get here and give everything… and we didn’t. When we go into a decisive game like this and have this kind of attitude, without giving everything for this jersey, things are difficult. We have an obligation to give everything. You can miss a pass, but it’s difficult to watch this. I will never stop. I have a clear conscience. If there’s a need to bring in the Primavera or Milan Futuro boys, I’ll do it. Without problems.”

Then, the words of Paulo Fonseca. 

“The first step to winning a match is to want to win. But what tiredness, what fuel, come on. The players have everything to recover from previous games, we must have an empty fridge at home to be more hungry.

“I had small teams when I started coaching 13 years ago, I had teams that on a technical level were not great but they had an incredible hunger and desire. That’s how it is in life, we have to have goals to grow.

“Once at AC Milan, we have to want even more because we have to continue success, hunger, desire with personal goals to get to the end of our career and be proud of what we have done. What I see is not new, I felt it before because I followed practically every Milan game.

“I am the one who has to change the attitude and mentality of the players. I am responsible, I am the coach and I take responsibility for this defeat because I wasn’t good at half-time with this drop then in the second half. OK, if we miss goals and the opponent was good it’s fine. But when we lack other things it’s difficult for me, it’s me as a coach who has to change the situation.

Sergio Conceicao Milan
Photo by AC Milan

“If you don’t have the base, the desire, the hunger, the will to win the game and every duel, as if every duel was decisive: that’s what’s missing here. And I as coach take this responsibility to change this situation.”

Finally, the desperation of Sergio Conceicao. 

It is bleak to read, and bleaker to try and fix because inter-squad issues are not a quick fix in the slightest. However, a ‘winter revolution’ could be attempted to slow the rot.

Tags AC Milan Paulo Fonseca Sergio Conceicao Stefano Pioli

22 Comments

  1. One of the best sporting directors and talent evaluators in serie A, Giovanni Sartori, is available this summer.
    Hire him and allow him to run the sporting department without interference.
    Set the budget and let him make the decisions. Any player he doesn’t deem fit for Milan should be shown the door and used for generating funds to get the players he wants.
    Any player not named Camarda, Liberali, Gabbia and Pulisic should have their suitcases packed up or on a standby.

    1. That’s a LOT of squad revamping you’re proposing in your last sentence. You think we can successfully replace 10+ players in one summer and then fight for titles ?

      1. Bro we spent 190mil on players not worthy of Milan between transfer fees and salaries….

        YES! Offload all the junk! Take another reset season if you need to. There’s so much “infection” at Milan right now …

        1. Just offload the ones WE KNOW have attitude problems (some of them have had them since they arrived at the club five years ago). The first two names are Leao and Theo. Thanks for the one random scudetto, and for putting on “world class” performances one out of every five games, but it’s time for that era to end completely. Selling those two alone would yield enough money to replace them and upgrade two or three more spots. Then following them can be Royal, RLC, Abraham and Tomori. Basically get rid of the entire entitled former EPL cohort, except for Puli.

          Surviving starters ought to be: Mike, Gabbia, Thiaw, Fofana, Reijnders and Pulisic.

          Surviving subs: Torriani, Pavlovic (maybe), Jimenez, Musah, Bennacer, Morata.

          Needs: Starters- LB, RB, DM, LW or RW (depending on the best we can get, and then Puli can play on whatever opposite side), SS, ST; then backup LB and CB. The rest of the bench can be filled out with our most talented and hungry Futuro players.

          And make sure the players fit a 4-4-2 system.

          1. A random Scudetto???? 38 games over the course of a year isn’t random bro. Top 2-4 finishes isn’t random either. But if u want to get rid of the winners that’s fine (it’s probably what Gerry seems to be engineering anyway so that he can call future success solely his) just remember it will take just as long to get back to where we once were..

    2. Sartori would be a God Sent! I would donate my left nut to science so long as he’s brought in…

      At this point Ibra needs to advocate if for no other reason than to save whatever is left of his image…

  2. It goes straight up to Gerry Cheapinale.
    We need good Italian core that have grown up with Serie A and know what a honor it is to be a important player in Milan. Right now the Tonali, Calafiori, Boungiorno, Ricci, Scalvini, Kayode, Casadei etc are players that we need and would be priceless.
    All other clubs in Italy have Italian core except Milan, In England they have English core, In Spain they have Spanish core, In France they have French core, In Portugal they have Portugis core. But when Gerry Cheapinale fire our beloved legend to hire a ridiculous Mr Moneyball Data as a Sporting Director then you get this ridiculous squad building with no strong core.

    1. not signing Kayode, Rovella and Casadei was just dumb…

      Walker + Kayode fix the RB issue

      Fofana-Rovella-Reijnders trio with Casadei, Benny, Musah, Zeroli as subs would be completely different team…

      Add Gnoto as Chukwueze replacement and we finally have some Italian back

  3. Yes we have idiots in the team.
    Let’s just mention Bakayoko, Origi, And Fode Ballo, who are not interested in any kind of play.

    It should be written in players contract that if they can’t preform in minimal level, contract can dropped on significant level.

  4. F off.

    Pioli finished 2nd.

    There was no issue with the coach or the majority of the players because if there was we wouldn’t have finished SECOND.

    SECOND.

    S*#t teams don’t finish SECOND in Serie A.

    Idiots calling for the SECOND placed manager to be sacked, and for players who delivered 3 top 2 finishes in 4 seasons, are responsible for this situation, not the people who delivered 3 top 2 finishes in 4 seasons.

      1. I’m not sure what your point is.

        Either Serie A is s#*t in which case we can only beat what’s in front of us.

        Or there must be some of luck involved but the league table doesn’t lie. Over 38 rounds luck balances out.

        I should also not that we finished second after an injury ravaged season, and after the management had replaced almost the entire midfield with a less effective midfield.

        If we don’t appreciate the achievements under Pioli then we’ll just be left flaying around with a scatter gun approach to ‘fixing’ a problem that hasn’t been identified.

        1. Serie A last season was abyssmal to put it mildly. You had inter and a bunch of average teams fighting for UCL spots. Freaking Bologna finished 4th, let that sink in !
          This season Napoli, Atalanta, Juventus, Fiorentina and Lazio are much stronger compared to last season, so we can’t just assume we can replicate what was achieved last season.
          The problem with your posts is you always refuse to do any change in the squad and assume a squad that won once, will always win and if it doesn’t, it’s because it changed. Well the opposition studys us and improves as well, so if we don’t change, we won’t win anything.
          Pioli had one good season, but then it was downhill. He should have been replaced with someone like Conte, or maybe Conceição but early on, but not freaking Fonseca…

          1. Pioli had one good season?

            He finished in the top 2 in 3 seasons and the season he finished 4th we made it to the semi-finals of the champions league.

            But this apparently is beneath people’s ‘standards’.

            I’ve never been opposed to change. I just believe we should focus on quality over quantity. And we should focus on the area that actually needs improving rather than every other area and ignoring our key weakness.

            Last summer was typical of most summers for the past 20 years. We needed a DM so we signed a RB, a CB, a box to box midfielder, and two strikers – and no DM.

            Oh and we strengthened our rivals and undermined our club captain. Like we’ve undermined our last three club captains. Because who needs a club captain?

            The whole thing is a mess. And it’s mostly a mess because people have these big ideas about what Milan should be and ignore what they are – the team that finished 2nd last season and needed a DM.

          2. Yes, Pioli had one good season. A good season is a season where we win or at least fight for a big title and aside from the 2021/22 season, we were always out of the scudetto race pretty early on and never fought for anything else.
            He did great between 2020 and 2022 but then he became an open book for our adversaries, that’s why even teams that finished beneath us had no issues beating us providing they parked the bus and waited for counters.
            I also am for quality over quantity, but some of the players you sometimes name either wanted to leave, were on the decline or were straight up average.
            Right now, yes this club is a mess, only few posters refuse to acknowledge that.
            In the summer of 2022, as an example we should have gone for Hjulmand to replace Kessié (he would have cost less than 20M€), Dybala instead of CDK who was free and try to get Scalvini, Retegui or even Scamacca and a Theo deputy…
            Providing we didn’t do that, in the summer of 2023, again as an example, after Tonali’s sale (we were going to lose him anyways), aside from Pulisic and maybe Reijnders, we should have gone again for Hjulmand (still 20M€), Scamacca (who was sold for 25M€), Berardi or Orsolini, Scalvini and still have enough money to go for Koopmeiners…
            And finally last summer, instead of what we’ve done, we should have gone for Højbjerg (14M€), kept Simic, Kalulu, Adli and maybe even Pobega, get Hummels (free). Sell Bennacer, get Ricci, maybe still get Morata but get Guirassy or other instead of Abraham and maybe Tavares ?…

        2. Pioli did great at Milan so this isn’t an indictment on him. Last season we finished second but 19 or 20 points off the top so it feels more like a top four achievement. We were out of the title race and Champions League quite early. Looking back, credit to Pioli for managing that with a weak midfield and an injury crisis but it all comes down to poor management from the top. Firing Maldini and Massara was the big mistake and everything else followed; the Tonali sale and poor squad construction. At some point, we have to acknowledge that we had a better more balanced team from 2020/21 to 2022/23.

  5. Pioli for all his faults shouldn’t be in this discussion. Say what u want but he was able to get the players to perform well under him. The new coaches are proving how difficult it is to manage first of all manage at a big club and secondly manage in Serie A. But we already knew Fonseca was garbage in Serie A, Conceicao is where the real gamble is at ..

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