Stefano Pioli has never been under so much pressure since he took the reins at AC Milan, but the feeling is that he has kept his job for now purely because there are no obvious replacements.
According to Corriere dello Sport (via MilanNews) this morning, Pioli is in the dock as are his staff, because the issue of injuries is central to the analysis of Milan’s season up to this point. How would it have gone with a full squad and not continually beaten down by physical problems?
In the next matches the focus will be on Pioli and Milan is starting to have pressure from the teams immediately below in the table: Bologna are at -2, Fiorentina at -3 and Roma at -5. Even the Champions League places are at risk, in other words.
The coach is in the balance but for now he remains and has to thank the lack of credible alternatives. The name of Antonio Conte must be excluded because he does not want a job mid-season and he would cost a lot. There are perhaps no others of his level and the injuries themselves pose difficulties: who would jump on the bandwagon of a decimated squad?
With this thorny situation on our hands, we will see Zlatan Ibrahimovic in his new role for the first time. The club asked him – as Senior Advisor – for an opinion on the working methods at Milanello, to identify what has changed and what could be improved to avoid an infirmary that fills up every week.
The Swede will then contact both the owner Cardinale and the managing director Furlani directly. Clearly, with Pioli still on board, the club are trying to limit the damage by dealing with injury management.
For this reason, possible changes in Pioli’s preparatory staff are also being considered, another difficult task given that they are all highly trusted men in the eyes of the coach.
Alessio Dionisi, please – who else will come…… Tactically, I like what I’ve seen.
Conte, a massive gamble and great if all goes well but I do not have much confidence in that being the outcome.
This whole story is BS or should I say BORING.
Every man women child knows the coach is under pressure and the gamble from gerry elliott hasn’t paid off .
Alot will depend on the possible takeover but until then nothing will change not this season anyway regardless of who the coach is and if gerry elliott don’t get out expect this season to be the norm and if that happens our only hope will be THE EUROPEAN SUPER LEAGE.
Injuries are part of the game and it’s not like the squad been having 9 players available. As long youre able to fill in 11 professional footballers with 5 subs you must at least show some playing style. What do you practice with the few available players in training then? ?Nothing about how to move around and positioning on the pitch? Just fitness exercise?. Well Bologna have had just 1 central defender available for large part of this season but you wouldn’t notice that because they have a coach that transmits bravery and some playing strategies. Pioli doesn’t want to be defensive and at the same time too scared of implementing attacking football. So the team is left in the middle and not specifically good at anything. You see I don’t really fancy Conte or S.Inzaghis football but they’ve a solid defensive organization as a good base and with a few attacking strategies you’d be certain of a playing style getting you results.
Pioli is not brave at all and such tend to prefer staying in the middle even with tactics. Both home and away gainst Dortmund I couldn’t tell whether the team was set to attack or defend ,team wasn’t sure which approach to take, only waiting for the opponent then responding to that.. So Dortmund scored then Milan pressed forward and equalize then back to confusion again.. Whole tie was like that. So mediocre and cowardly. I don’t know why some people saying the draw against Dortmund was a good performance. It wasn’t
The person unable to find alternatives should be fired too. It’s someone’s job to get one
There is a dozen alternatives. They’re just picky ‘cuz they want an italian. Why, who knows