CM: Question marks emerge over Pioli’s use of Hauge and Tonali – the duo continue to be left out

By Oliver Fisher -

Two players who appear to have fallen by the wayside recently are Sandro Tonali and Jens Petter Hauge, and the hope is that they become protagonists again.

As Calciomercato.com writes, Tonali and Hauge are finding difficulties. The two players have an interesting thing in common in that September 2020 was a turning point in their career: Tonali achieved his Rossoneri dream by joining his boyhood club, while Hauge arrived at San Siro after illuminating with classy plays in the Europa League preliminary for Bodo/Glimt.

Tonali quickly established a leading role thanks to Bennacer’s injury while the Norwegian immediately showed his important skills, confirming the excellent initial impressions and scoring important goals. Since then there has been a drop in form for both, but Hauge still came up with an equaliser on 3 April against Sampdoria.

Since then he has disappeared: zero minutes in four games, 86 minutes in total in the second round of the season, while his competitors Leao and Rebic have had their tough moments. Hauge was surprisingly excluded from the UEFA squad list for the knockout phase of the Europa League, the competition where he was thriving.

Tonali has 31 appearances in Serie A meanwhile, of which 17 came as a starter, but the €30m total of the operation to snatch him from Brescia has perhaps resulted in an excessive load of expectations that have contributed to a fluctuating season.

In the last five games, Sandro has been on the bench twice for 90 minutes, coming on in the other three occasions. Tomorrow against Benevento, the script may be the same: if Bennacer were to rest, Meitè would be the favorite to team up with Kessie. Hauge is not expected to start either, so questions must be asked about the project.


READ MORE: Maldini, Pioli and Ibrahimovic address the squad at Milanello – what was said

Tags AC Milan Jens Petter Hauge Sandro Tonali

8 Comments

  1. Its embarrassing that Casti, Krunic and Meite get picked before those two. Pioli’s go to guys are so bad but they are in the old boys club so they get picked, even though they let us down more often than not.

  2. Pioli is not the right coach for milan’s project. Management wants to rely on and delevop young players instead of buying expensive players.
    Now it turns out that pioli destroys the young talents we have. Hauge, tonali, maldini will never in pioli‘s plan. Brescianini pobega will at the end be used as players exchange. Milan will never learn from the past, pessina flourishes with atalanta, locatelli with sassuolo. Paolo maldini should also go alongside with pioli at the end of season

    1. that’s correct. Milan can’t implement their project under pioli and maldini as well. How could maldini bring player such as meite,mandzukic to the team rather than develop young talents..

  3. Meite and Krunic were selected before Hauge in EL even though that was Hauge’s competition. Look what happened – Meite error in ManU goal. We then expect Hauge to play in Serie A but then he didn’t. After saving Pioli”s ass with a winning goal, Hauge was rewarded with 0 mins. Look what happened recently.

  4. That’s absolutely true. Even some people know it ,they just keep quiet. Pioli doesn’t like them at all. If milan hire better coach,they gonna have more minute play, pioli sucks…

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