Following the disappointing draw against Lecce yesterday, Stefano Pioli has been heavily criticised and the pressure is certainly mounting. As highlighted by a report, the manager now has 30 days to save his job at the club.
Milan collapsed in the second half against Lecce and thus squandered their 2-0 lead. In other words, just like the Napoli draw and the Rossoneri fans are naturally very frustrated. While he still has the support of the ownership, Pioli must turn things around.
As highlighted by Calciomercato.com, the manager now has 30 days to save his job at Milan, with Fiorentina up first after the international break. There are many ‘decisive games’ in that period, including the UCL clashes against Borussia Dortmund and Newcastle.
➤ Milan-Fiorentina (November 25)
➤ Milan-Dortmund (November 28)
➤ Milan-Frosinone (December 2)
➤ Atalanta-Milan (December 9)
➤ Newcastle-Milan (December 13)
Reaching the Round of 16 in the Champions League is not an easy task, but missing out would still be a failure for the Rossoneri. Pioli’s position could then be put under scrutiny, especially if the negative trend in the league were to continue as well.
A month from now, therefore, we will know if Pioli’s cycle at the club has come to an end or not. Many are calling for the manager’s exit today, but it’s not unreasonable to give him the rest of the Champions League group stage.
Pioli this should be the formation hence forth if you still want to retain your job 4-2-3-1
M.maignan
Calabria, Kjaer, tomori, Hernandez
Musah, rejnder
Chukwueze, pulisic,leao
Geroud (Okafor)
Please Pioli don’t use jovic at all then second half you can change pulisic for Loftus cheek then chukwueze for Romero then Okafor for Geroud vice versa but please Pioli don’t use jovic at all he is a waste of time
Loftus Cheek is the best midfielder we currently have. So he starts for sure.
Send ur cv for the managerial job I think you deserve a shot it’s very simple I wonder why poili can’t just see this and at some point rotate when it’s for a lesser team to make them jel perfectly
Chukwueze is currently a flop, can’t be a starter, and RLC is our best midfielder (outside of Bennacer) and Kjaer is simply too old and too unreliable to be a starter
I think your 4-2-3-1 should be like this:
Maignan
Calabria– Thiaw (Kjaer)– Tomori–Theo (Bartesaghi)
Musah ———– Reijnders (Adli)
Pulisic(Chukuweze)—- Loftus Cheek– Leao(Okafor)
Giroud (Okafor)
I have thought about playing Pulisic at the 10 when we signed Chukwueze. Pulisic has played a 10 a few cycles ago for national team and at Chelsea in the 3421. I worry about physical midfielders bullying him off the ball and ending up injured. Playing RLC in the middle seems a better option but he appears injured often as well. I do agree that playing a 4231 with Leao Pulisic and Chukwueze would help with scoring and Musah sitting in could even be helpful in defense but that makes too much sense for Pioli. He needs Krunic on the field to piss us all off.
The strange thing is that everyone, the fans, the club, the media, has been talking about the attack and the need for another striker to complement Giroud. While Giroud does need a proper alternative because he can’t play every minute of every game, I think this may be distracting from the real problem, which is defense.
Look at the standings. Juve 7 goals against, Inter 6 goals against, Milan *14* goals against. We have let in basically double the goals that our scudetto competition has. Napoli is in a similar boat. Rounding out the top 6 Atalanta and Bologna have less goals against.
What is going on here? Why are we letting in so many goal? This despite having “the best keeper in the league”. Something is very wrong. We should not be giving up goals like those against Lecce. I don’t think it’s a personnel problem either. Yes, some mistakes are made, but those 14 goals are symptomatic of a systemic issue. Pioli is responsible for this. Whatever tactics/strategy is being used is leading us to concede too many goals. If our defense was as tight as that of Juventus and Inter I daresay we would be much closer to them in the table, regardless of our striker problems.
Yep. I quote Sir Alex again: attacks win matches, defenses win championships.
It’s more of a midfield problem than a defense problem.
In 21/22, we had Kessie who is a physical monster, had a huge workrate and is very capable defensively. He was the one who allowed our team to press forward all the time while pretty much preventing many attacks from reaching our defense let alone allowing for a goal to be scored.
The fact that he was never replaced (Bennacer is not the same profile, Tonali neither) meant that our midfield was unable to win back balls as easily as before and our defense found itself exposed.
Our high block, high pressing style also meant that a lot of space was left behind, and without a player like Kessie and our transition form a double-pivot to a single-pivot system led to a lot of problems.
Let’s also add the fact that Tomori only recently got his form back, that Thiaw is still green, that Kalulu is not the Kalulu of 21/22 and that Kjaer is no longer a reliable defender.
As Pep says – control the midfield, control the game…
Although I agree that we need a more experienced CB, I still believe that many of the goals we concede are because we lack a real DM. It’s the same issue Barcelona is suffering from this season after Busquets left. They have four excellent CBs and just came off a season where they had their best defensive record in a year. Even after enhancing their defense with Iñigo Martinez, they are conceding goals left and right. Why? Because they have no DM in their squad.
Although I agree that we need a more experienced CB, I still believe that many of the goals we concede are because we lack a real DM. It’s the same issue Barcelona is suffering from this season after Busquets left. They have four excellent CBs and just came off a season where they had their best defensive record in a year. And even after enhancing their defense with Iñigo Martinez, they are conceding goals left and right. Why? Because they have no DM in their squad.
This is, of course, on Pioli because he worked hand in hand with the management this summer. Most, if not all, the signings were either approved by him or personally asked for. Moreover, he vehemently refused to let go of his darling Krunic, who, besides being an awful player, isn’t a natural DM. (There’s even talk of granting him a salary increase, ffs!)
This is, of course, on Pioli because he worked hand in hand with the management this summer. Most, if not all, the signings were either approved by him or personally asked for. Moreover, he vehemently refused to let go of his darling Krunic, who besides being an awful player, isn’t a natural DM. (there’s even talk of granting him a salary increase, ffs!!)
And the money from the sale could have been used to buy that Porto striker or that DM from Bologna. Now, this wouldn’t be 100 percent guaranteed success for us, but it would have been miles better than our current predicament.
I apologize for the double text.
The problem is that there’s not many managers out there that can take over this team and immediately get us back on track. Unless we somehow steal de zerbi like Brighton did then there aren’t many options.
Secondly, pioli somehow always gets himself out of hot water but this is clearly starting to be a bad trend here. 3 seasons in a row that we have a month or two of horrible results.
I have no doubt injuries play a key part in this but then that goes to the training methods and medical staff.
Where pioli fails is that last night’s game and against napoli and udinese the formation changes way too much and multiple times a game. You confuse the players. Against psg he played a certain way with a 4 2 3 1 that in some situations turned to a 4 3 3. That worked. Why he decides to go to the Sunday league 4 4 2 or a 3 4 3 where we’ve shown many times we don’t know how to play it. Had he stuck to the 4 2 3 1 against lecce we could have closed out that second half.
With his subs, his subs this year have often been bizarre. I get you wanted pace to go up against him but you need florenzi to be there for experience and you Could have shifted tomori to that side Yo help out incase he gets beat. Musah is good but to put him into a game in a position he’s never played before you’re setting him up for failure.
And I don’t hate on krunic as much as many people do but it’s clear as day that he’s not starting material. Once again he was the worst player on the pitch and one who should definitely have been subbed. Even in the last 10 minutes his passing was dreadful.
I get the argument of we made too many new signings this year but let’s be real. Musah, loftus, reijnders and pulisic are all starters and have been the most consistent players so that’s not the issue.
I’m losing more and more faith in pioli because we have a team that has shown we can play elite football and when you go and lose to udinese, beat psg and should have lost to lecce it shows there is inconsistencies and that’s on him.
I don’t know about Serie A, but if Pioli doesn’t get us out of the CL group after what he showed VS PSG, he’s likely as good as gone.
Hopefully he will be gone by Christmas at the latest then I will guess Ibrahimovic will take the caretaker position…..
The champions League is the only thing keeping Pioli in a job.
Lol, if Ibra takes over as caretaker I will lose all faith in the ownership. He just retired, has zero coaching badges that I know of and then just gets given the reins to the first team? It would he an unserious move showing no contingency planning, so I don’t think it will happen.
If we are to hire a new coach, my favourite hot coach right now that is economical for us is Xabi Alonso of Bayern Leverkusen.Presently unbeaten this season in all competitions. Currently Bundesliga leader and top of the group in Europa. The most important part of it is he doesn’t really have special players right at his disposal but he is doing wonders.
That’s fine but given the system he employs it would mean yet another mini-revolution this summer with most of our wingers departing. Leao doesn’t play in the middle, by his own admission he doesn’t even like it. Chukwueze is also not a second striker. Pulisic is the only one who could play the role. Then we’d need to bring in at least one other second striker, an attacking midfielder, a central defender and probably two centerbacks (since we’ll be starting three every game). That’s at least five players out and six in (throw in Krunic and Kjaer departing, and a Theo deputy arriving, which is needed anyway). Are we doing this two summers in a row?
Make that seven incoming players, since we still need a Giroud alternative, although Colombo might fit this role.
Sack pioli and bring abate period
Please get conte ,he is free .
If we get Conte you have to be prepared to say goodbye to Leao. Are you?
Also, see my comment above re Xabi Alonso.