The AC Milan management have faith in head coach Stefano Pioli to get through what is a difficult moment for his side, a report claims.
According to this morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below), Milan will move forward with Pioli and the post-Paris Thursday made it clear above all that the club do not question a coach who has experienced another night of disruption.
Milan have put their trust in Pioli and use logical reasoning: in Paris, against a team that spends much more and is decidedly stronger, it could happen that they lose. However, a response is expected against Napoli on Sunday.
Yesterday the team only underwent therapy, today and tomorrow they will begin to prepare for the third edition of the Juve-PSG-Napoli triptych, which seriously risks ending with zero points, zero goals scored and thus zero faith from the fans.
On social media fans have expressed their displeasure at the last two results and some even want Pioli removed from his position as head coach, so the relationship seems to be on a slippery slope, but a win against Napoli could change things.
Against PSG, Pioli once again chose to attack and defend with a high line, accepting the risk of having to manage many one-on-ones at the back. The team were stretched, disjointed and PSG feasted.
Against Mbappé, Dembélé and Kolo Muani, was it worth taking this type of risk? Was it right to give a team with many fast and technical players the chance to beat the press and run into space?
Pioli chose this way because he has been training the team in this way since July and because a more defensive approach – low block, systematic doubles, ten players behind the line of the ball – is not in the DNA of many players who arrived in the summer.
With the benefit of hindsight, however, it is easy to reach a logical conclusion: it didn’t work in Paris. And now? In short, tactics were the theme of the day and even some players in the dressing room talked about it.
They know well that PSG-Milan, less traumatic than the derby, has re-proposed some themes of Inter-Milan: the high aggression, the stretched team, the one-on-ones, the insertions of the mezzali the attacking difficulties which in this story have a role.
Pioli is now called upon to find a solution, less extreme than last winter’s emergency 3-5-1-1. Obviously, the players will also have to help him. The attackers, who no longer score goals. Theo Hernandez, who without his mentor Maldini and his friend Brahim Diaz seems lost in his ups (few) and downs (many).
The locker room relationships, however, seem less topical. In the night between Wednesday and Thursday there was a lot of talk about the back and forth between Davide Calabria, who is the captain of this team, and Pioli.
Calabria’s main sentences on television after the match: “We were perhaps so unbalanced, we accepted the one-on-one. Psychological or tactical problem? A little and a little. In certain situations we were perhaps a little too open.
“Tactically they were better placed on the field than us. We’ll fight for it, it’s difficult but those who don’t believe in it can stay at home, we believe in it.
“We have to go to work at Milanello, anyone who doesn’t want to work hard is better off staying at home.”
That particular sentence did not go down well with Pioli: “Davide was wrong, Nobody works at Milanello with little attention or little willingness.”
On Sunday evening in the game against Napoli a response becomes fundamental, more for the environment than for the standings. Milan are second, one point behind Inter, and on Monday they will have already played against all the candidates for the Champions League places, excluding Atalanta and Fiorentina.
They have faith because of the money. Pioli use cheap players, some of them young without experience, he also integrate them into team to become more value, and even Tonali managed to be sold for 50 million in profit.
Untill Pioli gain revenue, mostly from champions league qualification, he will probably be OK by owner. Pioli is also cheapest coach from top 4 or 5 managers in serie a
Now to have “better” manager you need more revenue. But there is no guarantee that he would not drop 4th spot in serie a
Let’s be serious and look at the last 6 months:
We finished 5th in the league last season (we’re only in CL bc of Juventus points deduction).
Zero primavera players have been called up or played in order to develop them. Bartesaghi is purely a result of missing out on our LB targets. Simic played very well against Real Madrid then disappeared. Chaka could barely get on in preseason. We also failed to loan these said players out to gain experience. Bartesaghi and Chaka are rotting on the bench. Is anyone watching what Xavi does with teenagers at Barca?
Adli is only playing out of injury necessity. Then, he comes on and shows something different, as well as a technical quality, especially from a passing perspective. If Krunic never got hurt, he would be rotting on the bench like last year.
We have 0 goals in our last 5 CL games. We have lost to Inter and Juve this year and only scored 1 goal against them. We have no offensive identity. Zero.
Clearly, 4-3-3 is not working. But, Pioli refuses to make changes or adapt. Pioli is in love with Krunic whose is awful. And this bum is our regista. Now, Okafor is barely playing. Yes, he recently was involved in a car accident, but Jovic was chosen to replace him against Genoa and chosen over him against Juve.
Pioli out!
We also have a 2,33 point average in Serie A and two clean sheets in a group of death.
In which we are last/bottom, you forgot to mention 😉
And we lost both our games against our ONLY real tests (one of which was at home). We are last in the ULC group and of these clean sheet was a draw in sansiro.
Question: what do you think of pioli’s declarations that we played at times better than inter ( 5-1 loss) juve ( 1-0 loss ) and psg (3-0 loss and 2-0 at 60 min) ?
The problem wasn’t that we lost to Paris. That can happen. Problem is that we didn’t win against Newcastle & Dortmund!!!
Both of those games were there to be won but Milan was toothless in front of goal yet again, as in Dortmund they didn’t even try but was instead satisfied with a draw.
Oh well, now we pay the price for those draws because we ain’t getting through to the knockout rounds…
Not winning in Dortmund is not a problem, Chelsea lost there last season and Man City drew. This is a very difficult CL game.
Good luck with that management.
Pioli and his deputy Giacomo Murielli should be sacked and Bonera, with Ibrahimovic as his deputy, should take their place.
Milan should replace Pioli with Hansi Flick if we lose against Napoli. Hansi Flick is a better coach and he is very good with getting the best out of his players old and young.
Yes your right
I’m highly disappointed with the management because you people are mad you consider yourself not even the fans look at this matter is obvious that the 4-3-3 formation is given Acmilan issue s because all their players in that team are not used to the formation and they don’t know how to adapt Pioli been too stupid instead of reverting it to the winning 4-2-3-1 instead he played 3-4-3 won 1-0 now last season he made that mistake playing 3 man defense because he don’t know how to use players the same 4-2-3-1 he abandon brought Acmilan to champions league the problem of Acmilan is that we need to feature those young boys that are skillful and the 4-2-3-1 is the best formation and if Pioli insist on the 4-3-3 and we loosed against PSG at San Siro we the fans we cause chaos for acmilan because this inappropriate
Honestly speaking, there’s no coach in Milan.
“ Milan have put their trust in Pioli and use logical reasoning: in Paris, against a team that spends much more and is decidedly stronger, it could happen that they lose. However, a response is expected against Napoli on Sunday.”
This is NOT the point. Regardless if another club spends more $$ than you has NOTHING to do with TACTICS and being able to Adjust them DURING a game – something Pioli has consistently failed to demonstrate game after big game. It doesn’t matter if he coaches Man City or PSG or Milan – he will get beat 9/10 times against a better tactical coach. Saying “well PSG spends more $$ so that is the reason we lost” – is LAZY and makes me feel this management is INCOMPETENT if they really truely believe that – as most teams will always spend more $$ than us – so according to their logic we should expect to lose against every big team because “ a team that spends much more and is decidedly stronger, it could happen that they lose.”??????? LOLOLOLO. That is a LOSER’s mentality and should have no business at our club. EMBARRASSING