AC Milan had an expansive summer window with 10 players arriving and crucially depth added to the midfield and attack, but one gap they didn’t really fill could become a major regret.
La Gazzetta dello Sport report that the Milan management carried out a summer transfer market aimed at going for the Scudetto, but the more matches go by the bigger the question mark becomes over the striker role.
The decision not to invest a generous portion of the budget on a centre-forward seems at present the only unconvincing move by the Rossoneri in the revolution that gave Pioli a team that wants the second star.
Milan got rid of Divock Origi, but having dragged out the negotiations with Mehdi Taremi and then having to give up at the last minute, it left them in a difficult position.
Luka Jovic was not at the top of Giorgio Furlani and Geoffrey Moncada’s wish list and this is clear to everyone. Insteaf, he was the easiest to get with such little time available on deadline day.
Milan needed another centre-forward with a goal scoring track record. Giroud at almost 37 years of age can no longer be the indispensable one, so his replacement had to be a certainty.
Jovic is a gamble: he is talented yes, but during his spells at Real Madrid and Fiorentina he struggled for consistency after his success at Eintracht Frankfurt.
The fact that 25 shots weren’t enough against Newcastle and the fact that Jovic watched the match from the bench suggests that Pioli also has some doubts.
Noah Okafor meanwhile has played four games in Serie A but he is not a No.9 who can replace Giroud in terms of his characteristics at least, because he is more of an alternative to Leao.
What a surprise the media machine isn’t satisfied.
Are we already writing off Okafor and Jovic?
What’s the point?
If you didn’t write off Jovic yourself, says enough. He was brought in just because they couldn’t bring in anyone else. Big fail.
It’s the media as always. Their aim is to drive fans to demand another signing which then become stories for them.
No, it is the fact that Madrid got rid of him for 0, and then Fiorentina wanted him out after a season. He reeks of useless trouble. And his previous behaviour outside the football fields doesn’t help the bad smell.
He has barely played for us yet.
Any chance of giving one of your own players the benefit of the doubt?
I always use to depend pioli but from Newcastle I’m done
Pioli can’t also play striker. His tactics clearly worked as we generated 25 shots. The players did not deliver, chiefly Leao who manages to make the wrong choice more often than not.
What exactly were the wrong choices? You are making stuff up, Leao had one chance missed and he created a bunch more in that game, won most of duels. How can you make up random sh**? Leao manages to make the wrong choice more often than not. This is the most stupid sentence written on this portal and you have really big ones to fight against.
We created a lot of chances. I can’t agree that our chances came from practice or tactics. They came quite often from chaos create when Newcastle made a mistake and turned the ball over. Those mistakes were generally not forced errors.
Giroud shouldn’t have even started the game and what’s worse is that Pioli didn’t sub him as early as the 60min.
I don’t get Pioli and why he is still over using Giroud who was injured during the international break and he doesn’t seem fully fit due to fatigue.
Why even have play almost 80mins against Inter and the full 90mins against Newcastle when he doesn’t look sharp.
Management could have been more prepared to get a better striker than Jovic but it’s not as if Jovic is as bad as Origi. Jovic is also still very young and talented.
I’m tired of Pioli. But it’s difficult to change a coach this early or in mid season. But I hope next season Milan go all out for De Zerbi.
Jovic is worse than Origi.
Wtf are you on about? He scored 13 goals last year. What did Origi do?
leave giancarlo alone with his delusions
Give Jovic and Okafor a fair chance. We can review the situation in the winter transfer market if they come to the party. Also it is up to the coach to manage the players wisely before we write them off.
Why don’t we try tridente Oka4, Jovix, and Chucky..
The doom and gloom for this team after 5 games is absurd
Origi wanted to stay and I feel is better at football than Jovic, so when nothing materialised Milan must’ve stuck with him instead of Jovic
What I’ve been saying. Okafor was the one who should be our striker reinforcement. But after a couple of training sessions, he was not. Brought even more confusement
A scoreless draw that we should have won by all accounts, but which is still a good result considering what Inter had to do to get a point. And the media is already questioning the team and Leao… FFS.
Jovic AND Okafor watched from the bench because maignan had to come out as the last sub. Not because Pioli wasn’t planning on throwing one of them in.
In the presser Jovic admitted to not being at 100% yet so Okafor will be ahead of him in the pecking order. But they should both see plenty of minutes this season, hopefully starting this weekend.
My guess in Leao starts with oKafor up front, then Leao comes out, Jovic comes in, Okafor moves to the LW…
In Theory.
Pioli remains Milan problem.
He lacks adequate skill to harness the different talents in his squad to form a formidable team-force with a perfect goal getting strikers.
I wonder what talents like musa, okafor and chukwueze should b doing in a bench for a whole 70min while the team struggles to score goals.
Hop he doesnt waste their talents as he almost did CDK and Origi.