AC Milan’s defensive woes during the 2023 calendar year have been well documented, but the numbers indicate that a fix as needed as soon as the first month of the new year.
Opta recall that Milan have conceded 64 goals across all competitions in 2023 so far (with a game against Sassuolo to come), which is the most that they have let in since the 1929-30 campaign, 93 years ago.
The list of unavailable players doesn’t help either: Fikayo Tomori is out for two months, Pierre Kalulu and Malick Thiaw for a while longer and Simon Kjaer is not particularly reliable. Marco Pellegrino is inexperienced, as is Jan-Carlo Simic.
Calciomercato.com reports that the return of Matteo Gabbia will be the first reinforcement to try and aid a struggling department. Then, a new signing will be needed to give Stefano Pioli a bit more peace of mind.
Clément Lenglet – the author of an assist in the last match against Manchester United – was explored by Milan but blocked from leaving by Unai Emery and Aston Villa. The same applies to Jakub Kiwior, who Arsenal do not intend to sell in January.
The hot names remain two: Thilo Kehrer, who wants to leave West Ham and has been offered to the Rossoneri, plus Nordi Mukiele at PSG. Both are also capable of playing in different roles and are unhappy with their current situation.
Yesterday’s news from Belgium was Milan’s apparent interest in Koni De Winter, a central defender currently playing for Genoa on loan from Juventus with a €10m option to buy which could be triggered early.
The art of money bally
Milan had the best defense when we won the scudetto with Tomori, Kjaer, Kalulu, Romagnoli, Theo, and Calabria.
I don’t know why we didn’t keep Romagnoli instead of letting him leave for free. Maybe Maldini fan boys can explain this better.
So problem isn’t moneyball or the players. Our defense was better when we had kessie and we never replaced him with a DM.
We should gone all in for Koopmeiners or Amrabat to replace Kessie. Instead wasting money on signing CDK.
Another dumb decision by Maldini and Masara.
Remember when Romagnoli Guarding Lukaku, he admire that Lukaku so fast 😀
Easily solved by playing a deeper zone scheme, instead of man to man high press. We’ve been roasted by Inter many times with or without Romagnoli or Lukaku, thanks to Pioli.
😅☺️👌
1. Romagnolli refused 3.2 mil salary and asked board to not change his 6 mil salary.
2. You didn’t even know who was koopmeiners and Amrabat last summer.
So don’t act smart.
Nobody knew CDK would be flop as he was on fire in Brugge.
I don’t know why AC Milan fanbase has soo many clowns like you.
Right now everyone is supporting Motta as a coach but if he fails to meet expectations, clowns like you will take their mask off and start throwing stones at him
You do realize that there was an interview with lazios president where he said that every time milan had been playing in rome against lazio that he had spoken with the player about a future move and that romagnoli is a professed lazio fan since childhood right ? Romagnoli was always bound to join them at some point and due to the crazy Li management he was our highest paid player and earned over 4 mil a year right ?
Not to mention how would that look it the captain is on the bench all the time for other players in his role. Lol looks like someone woke up this morning gunning for Maldini for some unknown reason.
Also Maldini=CDK? I thought legendary Moncada scouted him? 🤔
😀 It seems so and after i wrote that comment of mine i checked Capology of that season and can see that Romagnoli had the highest salary of all of our players at 9.260.000 mil gross a year so clearly we couldn’t renew him at such a high figure any longer as you already pointed out that he had become a substitute for us. I nevertheless always liked Romagnoli.
Yeah i tend to remember an article with Moncada pointing that out. The reason why Paolo Maldini was sacked probably didn’t have a thing to do with renewals as he had to deal with the wage restrictions and neither with players bought but for the mere fact that cardinale found him too open mouthed and wanted to have his own crew.
Yea I liked Romagnoli too (apparently as a “Maldini lover” this can’t happen 🤣🤣🤣). And he’d brings a different element to the defence. Plus Pioli himself said he needed CBs who are good 1v1 which Romagnoli isn’t. He’s thriving at Lazio because they absorb pressure and spread the defence more. But at 9m per year, it was outside our parameters. I don’t understand why people don’t get this and why they blame Maldini for this? Its not his fault the budget was capped at 6m per year for wages.
I agree definitely on not replacing Kessie though but once again our wage cap did us in. We could only start negotiations at like 4.5 and then raise it towards 6m max. By that time other clubs that can pay more sniffed at the chance to get one of the best DMs in Europe at the time smh. And then we had to pay 20m for new players (makes absolutely no sense)
😀 yeah one doesnt exclude the other 🙂 Yeah doesnt Lazio play with 3 cb’s or at least did so last season. Maldini clearly had some constraints so it should be pretty easy to understand for people.
We should definitely have gotten a new player in the vein of a kessie type of player that would have helped us a lot not question there,
If you remembered, the first person who Maldini approached after that Scudetto season with the best defense was a new defender. That’s called vision, or intuition. If we got Botman, we wouldn’t buy CdK, what an irony right.
From the first match of last season I stated that I was afraid that the Fik and Pierre wonder duo were just a one season wonder. And boy do I hope I was wrong.
As the Kessie’s case, I’m fully agree. Also from the few first matches of last season I said that we badly missed Kessie in the Pioli’s system. And yes, it made all hell break loose here considering Kessie had been marked as a traitor bla bla here. That’s not the point. It’s not about the person, it’s about the role.
Same thing with Hakan, which was a vital figure in Pioli’s system. Thankfully we had Diaz, who also often got butchered here for every little thing. And now, we have a new system that in paper doesn’t need both kind of players. But we all now how it goes.
Last season we used ordinary double pivot without kessie, and we conceded more goals week by week, so they changed formation but dunno if it’s better or not til now
Exactly. That’s when I started to have second thought about Pioli. He didn’t have the proper replacement, yet he played the same exact way and system assuming the key figure was still there. He didn’t adapt.
And now he tried to come up with something entirely new. But so far, yielding in a bad (if not worst) outcome.
I recall the Kessie brouhaha. I kept telling ppl we needed a DM but most here was like “we have Pobega”. It was unbelievable. We know how that went. Same thing happened over the summer. We’re supposed to be clearly better….how’s that turning out? We have new players, sure. Better? I dunno. We have a different formation and tactics.
Same with the Botman issue, I was surprised Maldini wanted to shore up the defence after the Scudetto run but as we can see now he was spot on.
I really don’t get it
I clearly recalled a member here (thankfully I forgot the name) said that our mid was far better with Tonali and Isma. Something about a faster / more direct approach to the game. Lol.
I still think that our identity (or at least in this Pioli’s era) was built around 4231. We only had to replace a couple of key figures / roles and adding depth. Maldini also said the same thing about how we already had the base, and what we had to do is to add 2-3 key figures to the structure each season.
But no, Pioli and the current management did the contrary. And I honestly think Pioli got ahead of himself here.
Botman was before Thiaw, who has turned out to be pretty good. What we’re seeing now (injuries) couldn’t have been foreseen by anyone. Whatever defensive issues have arisen outside of the injury issues are plainly caused by Pioli’s tactics. How often have we been caught by a team on the counter because of his suicidal high-press, which coincidentally also has one of his fullbacks pretending to be a left-winger or a central midfielder? How many times have we conceded from set pieces? This is all positioning, which is a coaching issue. So given the injuries and the decline of Kjaer (two seasons ago when Botman was an item he was still considered effective) the solutions are: 1. Get rid of Pioli, and 2. Bring in one new CB, preferably left-footed, and preferably Italian, like Buongiorno. And we should not be bashful about spending money there. Juventus buys a 30-40m CB every summer and they always have the best defense. Defense wins championships, something Pioli doesn’t understand even if that was a big part of his championship.
@vero
All facts there. Yes it’s true, no one could envision this level of injury crisis. But our tactics done help either, neither does our transfer strategy
I can’t believe half of the things I read here lol. As I said, we really had something in the old 4231, it was just that the quality of players dropped each season (losing Hakan and Kessie and not finding adequate replacements). They needed to strike while the iron is hot. Had a good core, attract a few more top players and then it’s easier for bigger name players to come to Milan. Or…. they could do whatever it is they’re doing now
Three years later and we still have not replaced Kessie properly. This delay screams the fact that we do not really know how we succeeded with the 19th Scudetto. When you win, know why you win and when you struggle, know why you struggle.
I don’t get the “US” vs “THEM” mentality among the commenters on this site that has been going on for a long time. More so after the Scudetto year. It’s like a coping mechanism to deal with an underperforming Milan.
We are all one base here, we are all Milanisti. We all want the same thing – for this beloved club of ours to do well. But we’re so distraught with what we are seeing we need to find scapegoats among each other to deal with the disappointments?
Redbird fan boys, Maldini fan boys, Pioli fan boys….etc. No unity whatsoever. Yea we all have differing opinions, which is what makes this site great – to see how people think and what else could make sense.
But as soon as you hear an opinion that differs from your own – BOOM! Insults start pouring in. So now we’re at a point where many users just come here to vent and troll.
Very well said ACM1899!! Top comment fellow Milanista.
We can all have differing opinions and views but it shouldn’t divide us.
FORZA MILAN!!