AC Milan have been likened to a ‘black hole’ after their most recent negative result and performance against Monza by Corriere della Sera today.
The newspaper (via Radio Rossonera) writes that while it is true that up until before Monza-Milan the performance was in line with the Scudetto season, it is equally urgent to also underline the more worrying.
At present Milan have conceded 31 goals, the same as in the entire 2021-22 season, while they have already lost five games compared to the four they lost in the title-winning campaign.
The defensive solidity seems lost, the midfield is incapable of breaking things up and the strategy of scoring more than the opponents is based on a thin line which, depending on the incidents, can change the game in an instant.
To reinforce this thesis, it is worth pointing out the numerous individual errors which led to Monza scoring four. For the paper, the feeling is that everything that is built can be destroyed at any moment.
They write: ‘The most effective image is that of a black hole that swallows everything, destroying everything that is built’.
The alternation between Milan A and Milan B (the starts and the reserves) is bringing poor results, along the lines of what happened last year, while discipline has become an issue too after the sixth red card of the season.
The two matches against Napoli and Rennes had given positive signs, with two consecutive clean sheets and a good show of solidity from the defensive department, but the trip to the U-Power Stadium promptly proved it to be a false dawn.
If Milan want to try to stay at least third and go as far as possible in the Europa League, a sudden turning point is needed, starting from the key men of the team, from careful management of the two competitions and a more effective defensive phase.
Thats because we don’t have a playing character. When one or two players individually shines, we score. Leao,Theo, pulisic or giroud. Even Reijenders scored individual brilliant goal.
The coach can’t create a well oiled team playing collective football. Look at inter, they have a playing pattern, a character, every player knows each other and they play good coordinated football under inzaghi bringing consistency and we miss that under pioli
I agree with you, people are slowly coming around to it. There are some odd hangers on that for some reason are complacent with this mediocre play. I think it could do some people good to go back and watch parts of games from 2011, and really anything from 2007 and older lol. Look at that early 2000s team and tell me we do anything close to that OR a slightly worse team the 2010-2013 team. Those teams played beautiful football, we have a few good movements here and there but the players are struggling to balance their creativity and instincts with piolis 2D tactics. Tell me we do anything CLOSE to that, I won’t believe you. That’s why it’s frustrating bc I do believe we have the talent and we’re missing opportunities. An entire year waisted is a huge loss for any club, this is not acceptable.
Replace Lautaro and Thuram with Sanchez and Arnautovic and Inter becomes a 4th place team at most.
Lautaro (and Thuram) have a lot of hunger and having them on the field pushes the entire team to perform better. Their other bonus is that they get very few injuries so they keep playing at a high level every game. Also once you got rolling and are in 1st place, it’s easier to maintain the same pace (see Inter last year in Serie A and this year). Winning the Serie A is very motivating and helps push even bench players to perform.
Whatever is practiced during training isn’t being used during the game. So either opponents know Pioli too well and can counter his tactics from the get go, or there is a disconnect between players and Pioli and players just do what they want. Either way this seems like Pioli is the problem and has been for over a year. Worst that that, he keeps doing the same thing over and over again hoping to get different results and lo and behold results are the same.
I doubt this management has the strength or ambition to get rid of him mid season, but lets hope, for everyone’s sake that clube parts way with Pioli in June.
He has this club firmly in third place. He has his problems for sure, but to blame everything in Pioli is such a limited view… But this seems like your only way to deal with things.
I feel like other coaches learned how to play against piolis tactics after the scudetto season,defence doesnt work at all anymore.
“a sudden turning point is needed…” The drama…
I feel like the articles on this site are often stirring the pot. It’s ONE loss in the last, what, 10 games? & wins 2 draws and suddenly we need a turning point? We beat Rennes convincingly and this site was all praise. Now one loss…
We lost playing a man down. It’s not the end of the world. SMH.
I usually defend Pioli too but and I usually like your balanced opinions, but hey, we can’t ignore some mistakes:
Thiaw should never have started. He should have had at most 10-15 minutes of play once the game got secured; he needs to be eased back in and not thrown in as a starter while obviously still off-form after 82 days out. This is on Pioli. I thought so before the game started; this is not just hindisight.
And Pioli does need to have a talk with Thiaw and stop him from engaging in boneheaded plays like the two PKs conceded to Juve and Monza. That’s also on Pioli; he needs to manage the younger and less experienced players.
He also needs to chew up Jovic for being impulsive and hot-headed and basically costing us the game (together with Thiaw). You can’t respond to provocation by slapping your opponent on the face in front of the ref. That’s stupid.
Sure, the two players made the mistakes that cost us the game, but a head coach needs to manage players’ hot-headed actions and prevent them (I feel that Pioli is too soft on the players, sometimes). We have the second worst disciplinary stats in the league and it’s hurting the team, like when Theo was stupidly sent out for dissent and it cost us the subsequent game.
Also, it is obviously wrong to rotate 6 players simultaneously (that’s more than half the team), putting together players who are off-form after injury and players who haven’t had much playing time; they obviously had no chemistry and it destroyed the group that was winning almost every game.
Look at Inter: they basically always start their best 11 and only when a game is secured, they rotate them out to rest them. Start with your best players, score, get the game basically won, then sub them out. Inter has played the same number of games we have; they have way fewer muscle injuries and don’t drop silly points to inferior opponents by massively rotating the team. That’s on Pioli. He doesn’t seem to know how to manage two simultaneous competitions.
Look at it historically: we won the Scudetto only when we were completely out of Europe and Coppa. We had a good run lately but only while Europe was paused. Right after Europe restarts, we fall apart with unreasonably large and simultaneous rotation.
Sure, we had played only 3 days previous to Monza but the way things were managed, we had to bring the starters anyway for the second half. Again, it’s best to start the starters (they are called starters for a reason), secure the result, then sub them out. If you let things go out of hand then bring the starters in to chase after the result from behind, they basically have to run and make an even bigger effort and then they get even more tired.
These things are obvious and most head coaches understand it; Pioli however has repeatedly engaged in massive simultaneous rotation from the first minute with disastrous results; it’s not the first time this happens, and unfortunately, Pioli is stubborn and doesn’t seem to learn from his past mistakes, and keeps repeating them.
I think Pioli is a decent manager in many ways but not in all ways; he really needs to change certain things and learn from his mistakes.
I don’t think that replacing him will magically make us win the Scudetto, the UCL, and the Coppa… but if Pioli were to correct some of his obvious mistakes, things would get a bit better.
What do you say to this?
1. We have been all criticizing kjaer’s performances because he’s old, slow and ineffective at this point. Not to mention easy for opposition to get by. Kjaer played Thursday. Was there any chance in hell Pioli would start him again Sunday? Absolutely not.
2. Thiaw is back from injury and physical ready to play. Now in hindsight after last game we can tell he wasn’t ready mentally to play. BUT. How do you reintroduce a player back from injury? He looked decent against Rennes. So yes, you absolutely start him against Monza who , let’s be honest, haven’t done sh*t before last game. It was on paper the best time to throw Thiaw back in. And if I’m Pioli I would absolutely do the same.
3. I’m not gonna argue about rotation although I too understand why Pioli did it. Problem is the players he threw on haven’t played much together and it showed so the starters had to come back in to fight for a result. That is because Pioli needs to play them together more to develop chemistry and he hasn’t done much of that. But that is the whole point of having a bench. We criticize him for not rotating. Then we criticize him for rotating.
4. Inter play a system and have system players and they all play a lot better than us. Their roster is a lot better than ours. Their depth is a lot better than ours.
The truth is always in the middle. Pioli has faults. But last game is due to individual errors and poor performances. Pioli should have to go up to Jovic and earn him not to punch players before a game…
Hm… I still don’t know if you are right about this. Again, let’s look at it historically. In his tenure with AC Milan, Pioli has engaged in massive simultaneous rotation of 5-7 players ten times. We lost miserably 7 of these games, drew 2 and won only one (against Genoa, thanks to Pulisic’s individual brilliance). So, of 30 possible points in these heavily rotated games, we dropped 25!!! That is, this strategy is CLEARLY not working. Still, Pioli doesn’t seem to learn from his mistakes and keeps doing it.
I’m not one who advocates for no rotation or for rotation just out of being for or against it in general. It’s the WAY to do it that seems wrong. Yes, let’s rotate, but not SIX simultaneous players, destroying the chemistry and the team work. Especially when we did it 10 times and it didn’t work, resulting in 25 dropped points out of 30.
Yes, overdoing massive simultaneous rotations when 9 times out of 10 it makes us drop silly points, is on the head coach. We don’t see other Serie A teams making this same mistake, and most importantly, when mistakes are made, you don’t just keep repeating them over and over; you learn from them and change your ways.
Oh, and by the way, if things continue like this (dropping silly points to inferior competition) the qualification for the next UCL is not that secure. We are now 7 points ahead of 5th place. Atalanta in 4th has a game in hand and thus could get within 4 points; we play then next and they seem to have our number; if they win again they will be 1 point behind us, and Bologna could follow with getting much closer too, threatening our UCL qualification.
See, again, Pioli’s trouble with 2 simultaneous competitions: when we got to the UCL semis, we fell to 5th in the league, only making the 2023/24 UCL thanks to Juve’s punishment.
That is, we often do very poorly in one of the competitions, when we play two of them simultaneously. Other teams don’t seem to manage it as poorly. Inter got to the UCL final but also kept 3rd place in the league and the next UCL qualification. They are currently first in the Scudetto race and firmly still playing the UCL.
If you compare the way Inter manages 2 competitions with the way we manage them, there is obviously something wrong with our formula, and that’s on the head coach.
1 loss and 8 games where we played like shît and won due to luck. Rennes game was, how do you say it. Not a mirage but distortion of sorts..because we did beat them but it was only because they came really poorly prepared.
8 games would make it a rhythm, not luck. Luck is one game maybe two.
Udine, Bolgona, Frosinone, Napoli. All lucky wins and a lucky draw. Even getting 2-2 with monza was lucky. We were so lucky they didint finish the game off sooner, they could have if palladino had any ballz
Again. That’s not luck. That’s doing what you have to, to obtain a result.
That. Is. Not. Luck.
it was luck. you’d known if you’d seen the games
It’s not like they replaced Maldini with Zlatan and call it a day. Right?