The question has once again reopened regarding whether AC Milan will make a late move in the January market given the absolute crisis they find themselves in.
La Gazzetta dello Sport recall that the line from Paolo Maldini and Stefano Pioli for the entire month has been “we’re fine like this”, partly because it is true that they have faith in the squad who won the Scudetto but also because the word from above is that there doesn’t seem to be the funds available.
Maldini clarified bluntly a few weeks ago that Milan ‘will do practically nothing in the winter transfer market’, then spoke after the 4-0 defeat against Lazio to explain that the stance and strategy of the leadership are clear and he would not deviate from that, when responding to possible interest in Nicolo Zaniolo.
Pioli, on the other hand, after the Sassuolo game answered a question about the arrival of another goalkeeper: “When a team suffers so much, even the goalkeeper gets into trouble.” A potential new goalkeeper and a winger was the centre of speculation, but it seems to have faded now.
However, at the end of Milan-Sassuolo there was a face-to-face between the new CEO Giorgio Furlani, technical director Maldini and sporting director Massara. If the confrontation has also produced accelerations on the market, we will know soon.
The line should be like this;
‘When a goalkeeper suffers so much, even the team gets into trouble’
Dude, the season already passed. You can’t buy new players now.
If Cardinale continues after next summer the same logic, fans needs to put Cardinale name on transparent to go out.
Pioli, must stay till end of season because you can only put his assistant manager.
If Pioli can’t reach fourth position this season we have win win situation:
Pioli must leave, half of squad must leave, and we need major invest from owner. If he don’t do that he can’t own Milan. Milan still have bigger budget from Lazio, Roma and Atalanta and we expect bigger names and bigger serie a result from Milan owner.
If they wanted to work like this,they should buy some Torino or Fiorentina,not Milan!
It’s Form drop,like every other Team has.Problem at AC is this…it is Jauary,transfer window,and more players are not happy with money cap at club,so they are lurking chance to go there where they can earn more.On the other side,there are constantly 8-10 players on bench,injured,or whatever who are reciving huge amount of money for just sitting there month after month,doing nothing.It is always about money.Just about money.Many would love to follow the patf of Dollaruma adn Kakanoglu and Bench at Barca Kessie,and going to do everything to achieve it.Leao first….he must be sold 6 months ago!Gabbia,Calabria,Salemaekers,Messias,Krunić,Balo toure,Mirante,Tatarusanu…those are clowns,not players worthy of AC Milan.There are many leagues,it doesnt have to be Serie A
New players will change nothing, because Pioli doesn’t do new players. It is one of his biggest weakness.
Even if a miracle happens, new players arrive and Pioli decides to actually use them, he will not change playstyle or formation and we will continue to suffer. And then new players will get injured, like everyone else.
Change is needed, that much is obvious, but change of coach needs to happen before any other change can have any impact.
The problem is Pioli has been found out, Pioli has no tactical depth, and this has been proven at his stints at other clubs, if plan A doesn’t work it falls apart.
Agree that Pioli lacks of tactic depth.
He doesn’t know how to use CDK, who is the exactly player we need in this team: vision and passes. He should act as the head in our attaking and ball distribution. Instead, Pioli’s tactics makes CDK work as “blue-collar worker”, which he is not used to, wasting his talents and losing his self-confidence.
Questions for everyone that keeps whining about the owners.
Does Sassuolo have a better squad than our current squad and how much money they spent in the market?
How about Lazio, without Immobile?
Torino?
Lecce?
Which one of the top 6.7 teams in the league spent more money than Milan this summer?
How is it the owners fault that our squad, which is better or on the same level with 17 teams in the league, outside of Napoli and Inter, is getting trashed by teams like Sassuolo, Lazio?
The owners just got here and are here to stay for a while. You can Like it or not. Whatever budget they provide Maldini with he will have to make do with it, if he CAN’T, they will bring someone else who CAN. It is that simple. Especially when he can’t sell any player to help out with the bidget.
Also, none of our competitors are spending any money this January either, after they spent the same or less than us in the summer.
Stop looking at the owners and look at the management, coach and most importantly the players. Is the owner at fault that Theo and Leao have been trash since the restart? Is the owners at fault that Tonali is like a headless chicken on the field?
Is it the owners fault that Kalulu and Tonali can’t guard a statue?
Is it the owners fault that Pioli won’t change a formation, or bench underperforming players?
These are the players that everyone was bragging about, calling them great. What happened?
Not to mention that we’re only 2 points behind second place. Second place is THIRTEEN points behind first. Nobody but Napoli is winning the league this year. People make it seem like we’re mid-table or something. Lazio failed to win today and Roma is losing against Napoli. Places 2-6 are extremely compact. We’re very much still in the CL race, which is the only race left in Serie A. Like, nobody is challenging Napoli. People just can’t see this. If we’d our last four games we’d STILL be 5 points off first, which against this Napoli is barely a title challenge. If Napoli continues like this they will be breaking the Serie A points record.
Correction: If we’d *won* our last four games we’d STILL be 5 points off first, which against this Napoli is barely a title challenge.
Agreed.
The issue is that Milan got to 2nd off the back of our form before Christmas. Expecting us to put a run together like Napoli is unrealistic but for us to stay in the Champions League race we need to be reproducing the form from the last 2 years my concern is we’ve lost IT – whatever IT was that made us tick before.
And unlike others I don’t think some new shiny transfer or sugar daddy is going to fix this. It’s more complicated than that.
The exact same managers and players can go from world beaters to minnows overnight. In Mourinho’s last stint at Chelsea he went from winning the title to being sacked a few months later when they were 10th.
The line between success and failure is so thin as to be almost invisible. We desperately need to recover the IT and fast if we are to remain in the top four.
Eeeexactly!! Spot on! For some reason I don’t see any reasonable answers yet. Will there ever even be such? Even one? I doubt it. I highly doubt it.
Agree with most of your post but blaming the players isn’t helpful either.
The fact is these exact same players were performing at a higher level before. They’re not deliberately throwing games now but have lost it psychologically.
And actually the difference between Sassuolo and Milan is more psychological than technical or physical. This is the key difference between the players at this level who are all the top, top, top players in the world – even if Serie A is not what it was these players are still within the top 0.00000001% on the planet.
Why does Berardi perform so well against Milan?
He’s played against many different iterations and always done well. It’s got to be the confidence he’s gained from the previous times he’s played and scored and assisted. He’s now on a run and will forever be a problem for Milan. I’m sure there’s teams he struggles against regular because he always has.
Football at this level is (made up figures) 10% technical, 20% physical, 30% psychological, 30% down to the manager and 10% down to luck. And all of those have to click for it to work. That’s why it’s so hard.
I wasn’t implying that the players are deliberately throwing games at all. The point is that something has changed between the coach and the players. We basically got the same team except for Kessie and Maignan. Even when we were down a goal or 2 last season they never gave up or felt like they were out of the game. Now, not only they give up, but they walk into games unprepared, like they don’t care.
I didn’t think you were accusing the players of throwing games and that was probably a bit of an over the top from me. I also completely understand and share your anger.
However the fact is THESE are the players we have. And THESE are the players who have mostly delivered over the past 2 years (people say last season was a fluke but Milan were playing like league winners since Jan 21 it was no flash in the pan).
I don’t think anyone really knows what’s changed including Pioli. Getting Ibra back in the dressing room could help. We don’t need him to be fit, we just need his personality and voice.
A change in formation might be needed to tighten us up defensively. We can drop a AM and bring in Krunic or Pobega. Something has to change.
” Something has to change.”
Something. Anything! Just TRY SOMETHING, Pioli because “this” isn’t working.
The people cutting the checks at the top certainly deserve a lot of the blame. They are the ones that chose not to pay Gigio, Hakan, Alessio, and Franck. All went elsewhere and got what they were asking for. According to transfermarkt current value places those players at €138 million. That is money that can’t be reinvested in to the team. Only Gigio was replaced a reasonable replacement, but that is money going out. And we certainly have questions about Mike’s ability to stay healthy. The owners created holes in the squad that weren’t fixed whilst ignoring other holes. So saying look how much they spent last summer while ignoring how much they have let walkout the door without any sort of a fee is short sighted.
Sadly it’s actually rather simple: Maldini is not a good director (despite being a god as a player, he has no real experience in management) and Pioli is a mediocre coach, just look at his resume. As a result we don’t have a deep squad and a couple of long injuries have exposed us. Pioli’s one-dimensional approach has also stopped working and he doesn’t know how to change. Who knows when this nightmare will end but I’m afraid we won’t be in the Champions League next season. Our only hope is that outside of Napoli there aren’t any really good teams in Italy.
I’m blaming d coach for sticking to one system.why can’t he bench Calabria and use kalulu as right back ?.the guy cannot run, cannot drible,, cannot pass, cannot defend, cannot head ball away,
The same players that won the Scudetto are now struggling mentally. More signings won’t fix it. We need confidence boosting games.
For the game against Inter, Pioli needs to pack the box and midfield and hit on counters. If we’re lucky we can get a draw. If he sticks to his usual formation, we’ll get destroyed again.
These players are young and have much to learn and experience. Pioli needs to protect them.
Sad to admit that pioli, maldini and massara are not the whizz kids we thought they are!!!! Saying that milan are ok as they are now was downright stupid.
We should replace tatarusanu with radu (ha ha) and get back galliani from monza!!!!
Also sack pioli and get kaka …..
Just talk, no action anything….
Pioli is the problem. He has to go
😭😭😭😭😭
😭😭😭
I’m really sad.
I don’t understand why people start complaining about the coach, players and management just for a season. And you should understand that 17 games we played well and we have cleared the group stage of the CL and also we’re sitting 2nd in the league table. Have you seen the same happening to all other top teams? We have to understand that there is a case of player form that affects the team. And sometimes it happens that other teams will play well. They are also competing. They to have a management and strategy. Their players also have gained form and improved team chemistry. It doesn’t mean the end of the world. When we got the scudetto last year, all praised Pioli. Now just a little let down and all are criticising. Please don’t do that. We have been with Milan for the last 11 years when the team were struggling. Come on guys.
I would go as far as putting a primavera goal keeper instead of Tatarushanu. Last season we had incredible keeper that was making a huge difference, now every attack, every shot is 30% of the times goal. We cant play from the back so all that has a huge psychological impact on the team. What i dont understand is why are we not using someone else? What do we have to loose? This is our number 1 problem, sure there are more but those are minor in comparison