There have been good moments of the Sergio Conceicao era, but last night’s game was seemingly the final moment, and it was not a good one for AC Milan.
Conceicao’s future has been heavily debated in the past few months, with Milan seemingly putting themselves at a point of no return. However, there was a slight chance that he could stay; should he achieve salvation in the Coppa Italia.
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To the final the Rossoneri went, and with it, the seeds were planted, just maybe the Portuguese could continue, with a chance to build something of his own.
The full-time whistle last night though was not the start of his new era, but rather the ending of his team’s latest ‘failure’, and in turn, the whistle on his chances. This morning, Calciomercato.com have written that the story is done, and he will not continue, the seeds planted will not grow or blossom.
It will not be an instant parting, with Conceicao stating he will be on the touchline this weekend, but it seems everyone knows the inevitable. There is a considerable difference between the scenes in Riyadh and the everyday picture now, a sad reality.
A reset is needed, indeed, and the Coppa Italia final proved that. You only have to look at their opponents to see as much – an outfit united, strong, proud. Despite his best efforts to create something, can Conceicao boast the same? Probably not.
Judging a manager purely on a 1 goal swing on a cup final is the sort of ridiculous idiocy that got us here in the first place. If winning would have meant Conceicao staying, but losing means he goes… then we’re not a serious club (very debatable at the moment anyway).
The questions should be: Will he gel and work with the team we have going into next season? Will they work with him and his preferred methods of a pre-season? Does he have a way to stop us massively underperforming for the first half of games? Is there a better option available who is willing to come and be able to guarantee a marked improvement in the areas we’re failing?
We’ve got two games; if we win them both chances are we get into the Europa League. Odds are against that happening, but what would be the point in parting ways before seeing out those two? All we’d be doing is condemning someone else to the ire and blamestorm.
Shush, there’s no room for common sense amidst our ranks. Let’s forget the same coach brought the team to the final and focus on his loss last night.
The truth is both the team and coach were bad last night. The team for what they produced after the 20th minute (and for the missed chances before that) , the coach for being outsmarted by Italiano and also for doing the right subs but too late in the game.
Otherwise, Bologna held the ball a lot but prior to the goal they were not the better team (even if the more active one). After the goal they literally had 10 defenders and still were shaky on several occasions. However, our players after the goal looked exactly like how they played against Feyenoord and Crvena Zvezda. No idea what they need to do, not even a sign of a desperation in the form of random crosses or shots from 30m. No, they looked like they have a more important match in a couple of days.
Agreed with especially that first paragraph. I mentioned this in another post that the result of this one game should not be the determinant of of the coach stays or goes. It should be his body of work over the last few months. ….which btw isn’t impressive even if we give him a couple months grace.
He had the misson to get us champs he didnt then this would get us europa league at least which we could aim to win next year so it does make sense why he depended on this games as his inital goals were not meet
This has nothing to do with Conceicao. Maldini and Massara (and Boban) built a team that won the Scudetto and reached the CL semi-final and they were sacked. The new management, instead of building on the foundations they inherited, decided to dismantle the team with no plan going forward. Selling Tonali led to a loss of strength in midfield and part of the soul of the team. Selling CDK meant we would no longer play with a number 10. The switch to a 4-3-3 meant we would abandon a system that the players were used to. The sale of Krunic meant we no longer had a defensive midfielder in the squad. Meaningless tampering with the defense took us from Kalulu (to a direct rival), Simic, and Calabria to Pavlovic, Walker, and Emerson changed nothing. I would argue it made things worse.
Random transfers were made and we have an unbalanced squad with incompatibale players, incapable of functioning as a unit under three different coaches in multiple tactical formations.
it is crazy that we miss Krunic in a way. I think as far as talent, we do have it. Even more so than before in the attack. As a team, and management we do not have direction. I could argue, Puli, Fofana, Tiji, Santi and even Chuk and Musah are as talented or more than Krunic, Saladman, Bennie etc. But again, no direction. Tomori took a step back, Gabbia seems to be the same, Thiaw took a step back, and the replacements or competition were terrible. Jimenez? Pavlo? not ready, Royal and walker are arguably worse.
The rate at which they dismantled the team is startling. I believe this to be the main cause of our problems. They gutted the midfield too quickly (the engine room of a team)
If the lack of any team play and both attacking & defending tactics is because of Conceicao, then I don’t mind seeing him go.
But if the players are here to blame, changing the coach won’t be enough. After all, what has Pioli, Fonseca & Conceicao have in common? None of them had the team play as a team and there was no visible playbooks for anything. Zero tactics. Hard to believe all the head coaches lacked the ability to create plans on how to play.
Let’s correct the text a bit by referring to Pioli’s last year in charge. There was team play during the scudetto year and the next. Then with Zlatan & Tonali gone, everything faded. They stopped being a team. Everyone started playing for themselves only. If even themselves. Some stopped playing full stop. E.g. Theo.
we slowly gutted the defensive part of the midfield and never replace it. Kessie and Tonali left. Bennie stayed but was mostly injured. Krunic was a rotational player. Who replaced them in the midfield? RLC (LOL) , Musah (talented but not ready at all) , Fofana (Joined late) Tiji (very attacking but worked out). Terracianno (is he even a Mid) ? . With this midfield, even our greatest defense (nesta, maldini, cafu) would have struggle, let alone our current one.
Every other team in Serie A has a playbook (or many!) they follow. Even teams with Serie B class midfielders. It’s not about the defensive quality of the current midfielders but insane lack of any tactical team play.
Unless our tactics are:
1) Defending is done by MM16 making a save and
2) All the attacks should be by “winging it” – preferrably by giving the ball to Leao and hoping for the best.
Then our players are obeying the playbooks perfectly well.
Milan might not be failed this season if they go to European football.. relax and see the final position on the league table