Davide Calabria was very honest in his post-match assessment and this is something that Stefano Pioli was asked about during his press conference. As a newspaper highlights this morning, there is some tension there.
Calabria spoke to Prime right after the game (read the interview here) and didn’t hold back. He said that Milan were ‘very unbalanced’ and also made it clear that anyone who doesn’t want to work hard in the last three games can stay at home.
As highlighted by today’s edition of Gazzetta dello Sport (see photo below), some tension emerged between the Milan captain and head coach Pioli. The latter clarified in his presser that Calabria ‘was wrong’ in his comments, perhaps referring to the bit about the players working hard.
“We often lose clarity after the games, what we prepared during the week we put into play against PSG. Davide was wrong, no one works at Milanello with little attention or little availability,” he stated.
It seems some of the players experienced the game differently than the manager, which is far from ideal. The tactics will have to be a lot better in the return leg or the outcome will be the same.
Calabria was right
True, and Pioli was wrong. But he is not going to admit. Our defense was hopeless; we may say we did not have a defense. And our attack is slow. Zero goals.
Calabria is unhappy because he didnt start the game.
I believe the whole team needs to be restructured with a different couch.
Neither Pioli nor Calabria are technically growing.
I still think Maldini is missing to finish a lot of unfinished jobs in Milan.
“Davide was wrong, no one works at Milanello with little attention or little availability,”
Pioli acts like Calabria is some reporter who is talking out of his a*s about stuff he has no 1st hand knowledge. Forgetting that Calabria is present at Milanello and its the team captain.
Calabria usually doesn’t say much to the media, so if he felt the need to say this and publicly call out players ,means that it’s been going on for a while.
He tried to light a fire under his teammates behinds and hold them accountable, and in return he is getting undermined by the coach who is allowing that behavior.
Just pioli covering his behind.. I dont think he cares anymore about playing good, wining or losing he just doesnt wanna get fired.
Calabria is entirely correct in both his thinking and his statement.
Pioli may be the coach, but he’s absolutely wrong here. It definitely shows some cracks in Pioli’s armor that he reacted this way.
Also, I’m tiring of Pioli’s constant excuses. We didn’t outplay PSG for 60 mins. We didn’t even outplay Juve or Inter. Just stop saying it Pioli.
Acknowledge the poor performance openly and try to address it with gusto and energy. Ignoring it just makes it 10x worse. You can’t just bury your head in the sand and blow off repeated losses based off similar or identical performances.
Calabria is right. Pioli’d style of play is not working in Europe and in some important Seria A games. So if he does not agree with Calabria, Pioli has a problem analysing the games and establish what is not working.