AC Milan were certainly not at the races on Saturday as they lost 2-0 to rivals Juventus, and it has further complicated the pursuit of the Champions League places.
This morning’s edition of Corriere della Sera (via MilanNews) has a section headlined: ‘Milan, hard fist and the transfer window for an 80 million chase’. The Rossoneri must quickly climb the table because a Champions League spot is worth €80m, and Saturday’s result didn’t help.
After the defeat against the Bianconeri, Sergio Conceiçao was furious and – as per the paper – confessed to those close to him that he has ‘never coached a team with so little character’ and such little desire to win.
That is apparently what he confided to those close to him, though it is not specified whether this means his coaching staff or other collaborators. Either way, it is a damning assessment of the work still to be done.
Yesterday, at the resumption of training at Milanello, the Rossoneri coach wanted to make the players face their responsibilities as players representing such a historic club. It comes after he questioned the hunger of the group in his post-match comments.
“That’s what I say. But what tiredness, what fuel, come on. The players have everything they need to recover from previous matches, we need to have an empty fridge at home to be hungrier,” he said.
Clearly the new coach does not think that the team are in the right mindset, and he does not want to hear the excuse of fatigue.
From experience following my local team, I know that sometimes coaches accept a job thinking that the team is fine and just need little tweeking only to realize the disaster they’re in few games in.
Frankly I wouldn’t be suprised if by the end of this season, Conceição will decide that he no longer wishes to continue working with Milan and will resign himself.
I would resign if I were him. Why coach a team with players who are not serious and average
Because he is not a quitter, he accepts the challenge, and he has to do his best even if it is harder than what he was expecting. It is part of the coach and the management to motivate and ensure seriousness in the squad.
I said the same earlier. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him resigning because he realized what a huge mistake he made.
Omg.
OMG LOL ROFL GTFO. I love your input.
Yeah right. I would be really surprised, you are acting like you didn’t read anything Conceicao said. He is obviously not a coward to run away from a problem, don’t project your behavior…
It’s not my behaviour and I’m not expecting him to resign, I just said if somehow he decides to resign, I wouldn’t be shocked.
The man took the reigns a month or so ago and he’s more angry than happy, for understandable reasons.
So it’s cowardly to save his hide and career.
How well did the two coaches before him who tried to save Milan. Fare with this management and players.
TRUTH be told its not cowardly or quitting its common sense. Him even agreeing to the job in the first place under such time constraints was a big big problem and not smart at all.
If it fails, he would be used as the scape goat. No sensible coach worth their worth would agree to coach this mess of a Milan.
Terrible market choices, ineptitude management, uncaring owners, lackadaisical attitude from many players, and a terribly built squad with poor mentality.
It would be a miracle if he doesn’t explode in anger before the 6 months are up.
“No sensible coach worth their worth would agree to coach this mess of a Milan.”
He literally agreed to coach This Milan team. That’s exactly what he agreed to do when he signed the contract. Did he think it was Man City?
“How well did the two coaches before him who tried to save Milan. Fare with this management and players.”
Pioli finished second last season.
The same people that wanted to run Pioli out of town after a second place finish, and were screaming that everything was Fonsecas fault this season are now making excuse after excuse for Conceicao. It’s really something to see.
Yes the same people. Kindly direct your ire at those sorts.
I had no problems with Pioli, other than his tactical inflexibility and unwillingness to use some young talents given to him or use them in the wrong ways. Fonseca nor Sergio.
Sergio Conceicao has right. Many players of Milan are weak , lazy , self-sufficient , pleased enough to take the salary but don’t offer nothing in exchange. We signaling this for a time ago, many of our colleagues here curse the few of us for criticizing to harsh our “stars”. But…true always find his way to surface and make justice for us who criticized fiercely our self-delusional so called “stars” who play a good game just one in a month or two. We must sell them all and bring more south american players with “hunger” . My opinion …players raised in poor countries like Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, has more “hunger” and ambition. We need few “nordic” players from countries like Denmark, Norway, Holland for their professional attitude. Frendrup is an example but are many more. But… quality is the most important aspect. For example Emerson is from Brazil but quality is really low.
And finally …we need a proper sportive director like Sartori for example. We MUST get rid of the clowns : Ibra , Moncada, Furlani ! GTFO ! Now…morons…incompetent clowns
While I agree with your general premise about players from poorer countries, it seems that the “hungriest” player on the squad is from the richest country in the world.
Well we had Pioli and Fonseca and some amateurs playing managers and doing bad transfers…no one expected Sergio to do womders,not with this squad anyway.They spent 80 mil on what? Royal,Morata,Abraham or Fofana who is a decent player but not he defensive midfielder we needed.
Exactly! Fofana is good (enough) but even him was bought to be something he’s not! 😀
well, I guess he would be happy in retrospect that there is a 6month escape clause in his contract. Sometimes, players dont want to play for some coaches, maybe this bunch dont want to play for the management? Pioli was fired because they played crap, Fonseca was fired for the same reasons. Now, Sergio is moaning that the players lack “hunger”. maybe those who assembled the players need to look in the mirror for their culprits.
“maybe those who assembled the players need to look in the mirror for their culprits.”
I bet they’re looking. Every day. And loving what they see. With a huuge smirk. Can’t get enough of what they see.
I think the problem we have in milan is at the level of defense and attack the need to try their best to convince both rashford and walker to came and reforce the team the player choice the bought at the beginning of the season were not good except fofana we needed a fawarde 9 who is aggressive and doesn’t only depend on the ball sent to home
Rashford offers very little guarantees at this point and I highly doubt he willing to drop his salary demands for too much, simply put he is a luxury we can’t afford
Does ANYONE think the players have the right mindset? Honestly?
It’s all starting to sound like excuses.
Most of this squad finished 2nd last season.
Maybe re-instate the players who helped get us there and constantly delivered top 4/2 finishes over the past 4 years.
Or keep playing Emerson Royal. It’s up to you.
Keep playing Emerson Royal. Now that’s the sentence every Milan-fan wants to hear. 🙂
At least then we had a half decent striker – Come back Olivier, all is forgiven…
Look, I do agree with you to some extent but all this “let’s keep things as they are and never change anything” is getting annoying.
Napoli, Atalanta, Juventus and even Fiorentina and Lazio are way stronger than they were last season. Last season Napoli was 10th and now they’re fighting for the scudetto, so this whole “these players finished 2nd last season” is no longer relevant, this is a different serie A.
Also, do you realize that some of the players that helped us always finishing in UCL spot from 2021 onwards are literally retired by now ? One of them is in our management now. Are we supposed to beg for Giroud to come back ?
As for Emerson Royal, the decision to bring him in should be seriously investigated, maybe some bribery, whitewashing or so on was involved in it.
This can not be a shock to enyone. Over lats few yaers we fired every personel and sold or let go of every player with an inch of character.
I think the problem we have in milan is at the level of defense and attack the need to try their best to convince both rashford and walker to came and reforce the team the player choice the bought at the beginning of the season were not good except fofana we needed a fawarde 9 who is aggressive and doesn’t only depend on the ball sent to home
We were too harsh on Foseca. Chances are nothing he tried to implement tactically and mentally was actually accepted by our lazy players, so we were basically judging random results the coach had no influence over. Can’t even fault the algorithm only, since Leao and Theo are among the main culprits.
Probably the only two things I’ll remember RLC with is the PSG game and the way he looked as a tranining session was about to begin earlier this season. The man couldn’t be more mad about the annoying choir he was tasked with.
What’s the solution? Hm, I don’t know, why don’t you start with hiring a friggin’sporting director for one? Maldini’s influence at Milanello was crucial to our success. Now it’s Zlatan who has completely lost his aura and isn’t even there on a daily basis. The coach can’t be left alone with such impossible task.
The problem is after winning scudetto, the target is “only” top 4. After Pioli, they hired Fonseca, all of these is a miles step backward. Nobody is hungry anymore, and those are management fault. No european competition or world cup, so these players become unmotivated. Chill until next season because they wanted to be called for world cup.
It’s so funny to watch the same people that tried to blame everything on Fonseca , now making excuses for Conceicao. This guy so far is like Mourinho without the tactics. Nothing is his fault ever. His tactics so far have been awful. We get outplayed in every match. We fall behind in every match. In 5 games now, zero goals in the first half. Then he just throws everyone forward and hopes for a comeback, which has miraculously worked a few times but is no kind of strategy.
Tactically Fonseca was superior to him in every way. They have never looked this bad. Fonseca had the same problems, mostly Theo trying to sabotage him and the team, and was trying to discipline these players. Management should have stood behind him.
“Tactically Fonseca was superior to him in every way.”
🤣🤣🤣
Fonseca was superior to Conceicao in every way? okay…. Not sure what games you’re watching…
Couldn’t have been the 2-2 with Lazio… or the 3-3 with Cagliari…. Or the losses to Parma and Fiorentina… What about 2-2 with Torino? No, couldn’t have been Fonseca’s master tactics. Had to have been something else.
Now you understand why it’s sooo easy to quote him? Its the outrageousness and it’s only one poster. You’ll see him blame Theo ( or maybe Leao) for some reason for those losses / draws you mentioned. I’ll just grab the popcorn 🍿
It’s true. Since fonseca has left fofana and reijnders are completely gone. The one good thing we had going for us and now we have nothing. Juventus in the first half had 68% possession and we have looked weak and without ideas in every game. Maybe conceicao should realize we need to work on both tactics and their motivation and clearly a 4 3 3 isn’t working well. These players are In a funk and they can’t get out. We’re desperately missing a player like tonali who showed heart in every game and was distraught losing. Now, nobody cares and we need someone to shake them up. Unfortunately our management care less than the players and don’t have a clue what they’re doing
Fofana and Deers have been overworked but I do notice Deers having a hard time with the new tactics still. Also we don’t have a team built for ANY formation. We’ve defaulted to 4231 because it’s easier to manage and provides some protection to the backline by force. But we were never built for a 433 especially (no DM nor a backup for our quasi DM Fofana). Hoping coach realizes this. We have January to fix a basic problem like what formation are we looking to play exactly
First of all, you need management, who knows local culture, needs, demands…who understand at least the basic principles of the sport in its local environment and has a strategy for mid to long term sportive and financial success.
Second, you need a coach, that understands and supports this mid and long term strategy and is able to incorporate all of this in a day to day activities both on and off the pitch.
Third, you need one strong role model, true captain, bandiera… he needs to be best, the strongest, most motivated… our candidates are leao (lacks leadership and motivation), theo (lacks leadership and motivation), and maignan (lacks motivation and presence on the field)…
Fourth… after you have that #1 player, you give him 4-5 equally strong players to support him… once you have these 5-6 core players, you try to build a team around them… sometimes it takes a year, sometimes more… but each year you try to replace those that dont fit in the system… you always need to have a mixture of experience and youth but all with the same winning mentality, respect for clubs history and a desire to win at all costs…
You can see for yourselves that we do not have any of the points covered… with first (that should be the basis of all success) being our weakest link atm…
Sounds like we had those elements…maybe two years ago I’d say