While many are pointing the finger at Stefano Pioli for his management of the Europa League tie against AS Roma, a report has pointed out that he was let down by his leaders again.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) writes this morning, after the disappointing performance in the first leg there was a great desire for revenge in yesterday’s second leg of the Europa League quarter-finals against Roma.
In particular, there were great expectations around the big names who had failed a week ago at San Siro. Unfortunately, however, the hoped-for answers did not arrive and once again Milan’s leaders disappointed.
The big names flop
The paper focuses first and foremost on Rafael Leao. On the eve of the match, the Portuguese had guaranteed a different performance compared to the first leg and yet this time too he was not as decisive and crucial as all the Milan fans hoped.
Theo Hernandez and Olivier Giroud also performed poorly. The former never showed his usual acceleration on the left wing barring one run, while the latter never even threatened Svilar and continued his bad period.
If there was a match in which Milan needed to demonstrate that they were more united than ever it was yesterday’s, but unfortunately none of this was evident at the Olimpico. In his moment of need,
Pioli remained alone and in the post-match he expressed all his disappointment with the performance of his players: “There were two games that were not up to par on our part, we needed more quality. I thought the team could play better and win, I’m not satisfied.”
This decline and yesterday’s defeat was 100% Pioli’s fault, he is mismanaging the players, and he continues to use stale and unstable tactics and formations, Italian papers have a bad and nasty habit of supporting Italian coaches even if they are at fault…
Giroud has been walking like a dead body since Christmas and yet he has a guaranteed spot on starting XI.
Calabria is playing in midfield (and basically doing whatever he wants) and Musah as RB and you want to blame the players??
Where was the tactic? Was there any strategy for this match?
Since last winter, players are ‘resisting’ on Pioli’s nonsense and yet you want to point your fingers at players??
If coach keeps blundering which player wants to play???
Yesterday, De Rossi was a boss and Pioli was his bitc, you can notice that even from their body language.
This is transferred to players as well. They were playing their football and our players were crying to referee all the time.
We needed to control midfield and setup the game aaaand Pioli decided give the job to Musah who was on bench most of the season and Bennacer who is not even in shape???
RLC was passing the ball only to Roma players and Pulisic has disappeared in every single big match in whole season aaaand Pioli decided give them starting spot???
When you choose everything wrong how do you expect players to come back with a magic?
Key point is Theo- he had been fighting with a passion since he joined to Milan and yesterday, he emotionally unavailable… He didn’t fight, didn’t cross, didn’t even argue with anyone… This ‘silence’ was the loudest takeaway. He no longer sees any future with Pioli.
Since Cardinale’s takeover, we are going down on light speed. He genuinely thought he would create some ‘American’ model and Moneyball and make money by signing gamble players as a wholesale market. Ajax model would work in Eredivise because they don’t have another challenger club but in Italy? What was he smoking?
He took a loan from Elliot and bought the club for that loan like wtf is that? Now he is seeking for investment from middle east to pay off that loan and build a new stadium lol
Random bunch of 20-25 million rated players won’t win a big match… And hasn’t won a sh*t.
We had a decent chance to sign Motta and what board did??
Exactly! Nothing!
They waited for Pioli to fail lol.
Imagine your kid is sick, will you wait and don’t take actions till your kid dies??
Or let’s say you noticed that there is something wrong with your car and your engine is turning off suddenly from time to time, will you wait for your car to explode in the middle of the road and they you will go to car repair???
You got my point, right? I hope so.
You take actions when you are sure that something is wrong and needs to be repaired.
This already shows overall football knowledge of current board
FURLANI should never stay anywhere close to club under any circumstances
Calm down.
It’s a La Gazetta Dello Sport article translated in English. It’s not sempre Milan’s opinion piece.
Thank you for clarifying that. Next I’ll be accused of being Gazzetta’s editor too!
Hi Oliver,
Why did you edit/remove some parts of my comment?
I didn’t insult you or the board but asking genuine questions lol
If you offended, I apologize
Well if you keep picking players that are not in form (Giroud, RLC, Bennacer, Pulisic) over subs that are out performing them. What do you expect.
The players don’t know what to do once we start approaching the penalty box. Player without the ball are standing still and the one with the ball has no idea what he should do. That’s all on Pioli. Look at ANY other team play. They have plans/tactics they follow. Milan? Nothing. No ideas at all. No creativity. Pass the ball to Leao and pray. That’s the only idea. And Leao himself was hiding somewhere.
Worse teams with far inferior players can attack and create chances. Milan can’t. Why? The lack of tactics and teamplay. Why? Pioli. That’s why.