AC Milan CEO Giorgio Furlani made a number of phone calls to the leaders of the squad before making the decision to keep Stefano Pioli for now, a report claims.
According to today’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below), Pioli has received confirmation of his confidence from Milan but he is at risk of being sacked if things do not pick up quickly, with Antonio Conte an idea to replace him.
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The decision was the result of the hours of reflection between Milan and the United States that involved the various leaders at the club. There were many phone calls including the decisive one between the founder of RedBird Gerry Cardinale and the CEO of Milan Giorgio Furlani.
That produced the final decision to keep Pioli for now, but before that many calls were made to the top players in the squad, who reiterated their trust in their head coach. The club wanted to gauge the feelings of the players before making a decision.
Yesterday’s phone calls between the Milan management and the leaders of the team coached by Pioli are linked to one of the charges against the coach: the lack of fire seen among the leaders against Salernitana.
Pioli out, but not Conti😠
I want conte. We need a winner. Inter keep winning weather they play beautiful football or not. Inter level today is because conte put them where they are. Ever since Ancelotti left no Top management has managed milan.. am tired of the mediocrity manager. I need a winner and who knows italian league. And for me is conte. Milan must win again
When was the last time Conte won anything? He was horrible at Spurs and even worse in the Champions League.
With Conte ridiculous salary and demands he is not a good fit for Milan.
I would rather take a chance with Motta, Farioli or Italiano.
Allegri and Pioli both won a scudetto with Milan, exactly the same number as Ancelotti. But about Carlo’s champions leagues? What about Conte’s European nothing? Also, once again, my broken record comments about Conte/Tudor or any coach that uses 3-5-2: What do we do about our wingers? What do we do with our highest paid player (Leao)? What do we do about one of our best players this season (Pulisic)? What do we do about a player we spent 28m on (Chukwueze)? Conte had no use for wingers. Also, what do we do with a system that requires three [good] centerbacks when we only have one senior centerback available, not to mention nothing on the bench? 3 centerback systems require at least six senior level CBs. The Conte posts are almost as annoying as the Maldini posts at this point.
pretty sure multiple people already told you what about wingers in 343…
Pretty sure Conte has only used this for 6 months in his career, during his second season with Tottenham, where he had the team in 10th place and lost against….PIOLI…. in the UCL round of 16, and then had a hissy fit and quit in March. So clearly, it wasn’t working out for him. But, yeah, I guess technically he could use that formation and thus employ our wingers, sure.
Vero Rossonero, are you calling Allegri and Pioli in the same breath with Ancelotti, you got to be crazy even if Ancelotti has one scudetto they are not in his class.
Not exactly, no. Definitely not Pioli. But Ancelotti is a strange one in a sense. His record is about winning UCLs and then winning all the top leagues, albeit once (and some other cups, etc.). Let me repeat, he’s only one the domestic league competition once, in each case (although he might break that duck this season). He’s clearly a
“cup manager”. Contrast to Pep or SAF, the former having won 11 league titles and 3 UCLs (plus other cups), the latter 17 league titles and 2 UCLs (plus other cups). Ancelotti has 5 league titles and and 4 UCLs. Allegri has 6 league titles and two UCL runner-ups. So with Allegri, with a little better luck, and a little worse luck for Carlo, you’d have almost identical records, minus of course Carlo’s unique achievement of having won all of the top 5 leagues. You have to admit that Carlo underperformed in Serie A with a side that included Maldini, Nesta, Cafu, Gattuso, Pirlo, Kaka, Seedorf, Inzaghi Shevchenko and a few other big names at different points. On paper it’s one of the best sides of all time and still only 1 Serie A title. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Bye bye Pioli
Can’t ask players about stuff like these. They’re part of the problem ffs. The performances they give sometimes, it’s borderline disrespectful to the club that pays them millions.
This is a very unprofessional move on the part of management, the players would always support the coach, if Pioli had any sense of honour he would have resigned if he heard this…very unprofessional move…
Lol, I think this happens all the time. Also, why would players automatically support the coach? Plenty of coaches have lost the locker room.
Because what happens if a player says yeah fire the coach, but the majority says keep him.
There is always a chance that the manager finds out what you voted.
Plus other players who did not get asked are reminded they are not ‘top team members’. Not very team-spirited.
Very unprofessional from management.
It happened in many teams that players stopped supporting the coaches, but it was also done in a “discret” way. I don’t think any player is gonna go to the management and ask them “please remove the coach”. This player, especially if he finds himself alone, will risk losing his place in the team.
Also, players shouldn’t put all the blame on the coaches. Yes this season is mostly pioli’s fault, but the players (especially the “top” players) disastrous performances at times is also their personal fault.
1) Pioli isn’t that bad of a coach 2) 10 new players take time to adjust to each other, new culture(italy), new league, language etc… 3) The player purchases weren’t that great 4) professional player should need “motivation” they get millions of dollars and play for an iconic club 5) the massive injury crisis hasn’t helped 6) no real viable coaches available and throwing a different coach into same situation with the additional problem of having a short period of time to implement corrections / new system isn’t the answer 7) the team isn’t doing that badly considering..20 wins should get top 4 CL finish..already have 10
shouldn’t need motivation
You’re making too much sense. We don’t want that here.
/s
Yup. We do panic and illusion here.
why did we win against monza but lost, yes i count that as a loss, on friday?
Up, down, up, down. Our last ten games
Udinese 0-1 Milan
Milan 2-1 PSG
Lecce 2-2 Milan
Milan 1-0 Fiorentina
Milan 1-3 Dortmund
Milan 3-1 Frosinone
Atalanta 3-2 Milan
Newcastle 1-2 Milan
Milan 3-0 Monza
Salernitana 2-2 Milan
We beat PSG and Newcastle. We lost to Udinese, whose only win to date is against us, and almost lose to Salernitana who only have one win and are bottom table (remember Spezia?). We lose to Atalanta and a “brilliant” CDK, only for them to get handled by Bologna. Does Bologna have a better squad? Is Maldini there? Up, down, up, down. This is Pioli’s Milan. No consistency. Injuries? We’ve had them all year. They didn’t prevent us from beating PSG, Newcastle and Fiorentina. How are they an excuse for losses against Udinese and almost Salernitana. Same for “gelling”. How do we gel against PSG and Newcaslte and Frosinone and then un-gel vs Udinese, Dortmund and Atalanta??? Which of the purchases is doing badly? Pulisic is one of our best players, Reijnders has been good, Musah has been good at at 20 has great future ahead and can play anywhere, Chukwueze is starting to improve, even Jovic has scored 3 goals in the last 4 games he’s played. The only disappointment is RLC, TBH. Plus, don’t you contradict yourself when you say our purchases need time to gel and then say they’re not good enough? Maybe they’re not good enough because they haven’t gelled then? Which one is it? Finally, the laziest overpayed players have been….gasp…..Theo and Leao, two players that have been here for a bit. Finally, highly paid professional players definitely need motivation (read: the right coach). This is a common enough issue in football: Manchester United, Chelsea, Napoli, Barcelona, all huge clubs with highly paid professionals who have had a run of poor seasons, or good seasons followed by poor season for no apparent reason or because they changed coach. Don’t forget our fifth place finish last season. Why? Did we sign 10 players? Were they taking time to gel? Did we have any injuries?
We reach 5th place last season because we dont have enough squad to compete on UCL and serie a together. We reach semifinal UCL you know if you forget. But if you want just focus on the league and throw UCL match i think 4th place is easy to reach last season.
*tbh i think we get scudetto because we lose in the group stage that time. If we get through the round 16 i think we wont have that scudeto
we had plenty of squad. 26 players + 4 gk. 4!
You and a few others just want to focus on the that semi-final as if it were some divine revelation. We got eliminated at the groups the season prior to our semi final appearance, and got eliminated at the groups the season after (this season). We reached the semis because we played a Tottenham in free-fall (ironically lead by the grand master Conte that so many want here) and then played a Napoli whose number we had all season last season. Remember how they were champions and basically outplayed everyone else in Serie A? Two particular matchups. Then we met Inter and got brought back down to earth by a team and coach that Pioli has no fvcking clue how to beat.
Oh, and we BARELY got by Napoli. Rewatch the second leg. Had they been able to finish they would have been up like 3-0 in the first 20 minutes, and they squandered quite a few other chances as well.
Players like Giroud would support Pioli knowing that if another coach is hired, that’s probably the end of their playing days. The management are just donkeys
When you have a weak dad like Pioli, no one cares.
When we had a strong dad like Maldini, no one dared cross him.
Milan mgmt made a terrible (and wrong) decision, in firing Maldini and Massara. Moncada is OKish so far but he doesn’t carry any weight in the locker room. Moneyball has not shown it’s paid off yet, in fact, the opposite so far. Should have kept M&M as the go between. Fact is, Maldini is on a whole different level than Moncada. It’s not even close and everyone sees it.
They made another mistake putting their faith in Pioli. He can’t lead the team, he can’t inspire them. They just don’t respect him. Same tactics and mistakes game in, game out.
This is the reason they are bringing Ibra back. To give some cojones to the locker room. With Pioli and Moncada, Milan have become weak, lazy and are not learning from their mistakes. It’s too lady like in the locker room right now. They need to dig deep, and well, that’s not Pioli. They need someone to yell at them, that’s not Pioli. They need someone to SHOW them how to win, that’s not Pioli.
PS. Pioli did invent a new scheme while at Milan though. It’s called, no defense. You invert every position, and push them up the pitch to attack. That’ll get the goals, according to Pioli. For his final trick, Pioli will now perform an inverted goalkeeper who helps out on the attack as an extra midfielder. Defense? Set pieces? Who cares about those. Invert every position, send everyone forward by punting the ball as far as we can and hope to gosh it lands at Leao’s feet and then? You win at life and football. That’s Pioliball.
Definitely bro. maldini its legend. Milan legend. We see at juve and inter, they top level management has always at least one the legend player to manage the locker room. This method works so that the winning mental tradition continues. Maybe some fans will be decline this theory, but dont forget this calcio italia. Italian tradition.
These posts are so interesting. I didn’t realize that Pioli was just a shadow coach for Maldini. This explains it all. Maldini was actually the coach and Pioli was his mouthpiece. Maldini set the tactics, formation and gave the team talks. During games, he would give Pioli instructions via headset.
Vero spitting nothing but facts today.
Some people in here are convinced that everything good that happened over the last 4 years was Maldini’s doing.
He fixed the clubs financial problems, not Gazidis.
He found all the young players like Theo, Leao, Maignan, Kalulu etc, not Moncada.
He got the attitude of the players on the pitch fixed, it wasn’t Zlatan.
People need to check Milan results under Maldini without Zlatan, the results while Zlatan was there, and then check the results under Maldini again when Zlatan was injured and away from Milanello last season.
Maldini was just the face who got the credit while everyone else did the work behind the scenes.
And it’s the other way around for you lot – all the bad things were Maldini’s doing and all the good was everyone’s else. Fact is he was someone who meant something and both Leao and Theo came because of him. I can paste Leao’s and Theo’s interviews here if you want. He was respected man and now there’s no one who deserves respect there anymore. Those are facts.
You misunderstand. It’s not a diss against Maldini. I’ve never been against Maldini. I’m against people who think he was infallible and that every single good thing that happened was because of him, and everything bad that’s happened is because of everyone else. 100% he was instrumental in bring Theo and Leao, although both have been some of our most underperforming players this year. So are they just sad that Maldini isn’t there, because if so I’d immediately lose faith in them as professional players. It’s like as if managerial and coaching changes don’t happen in football. Professional players must get on with it. All I’m saying is that Maldini isn’t a god, and some people here make it seem as though there is nothing left to do without Maldini. We must get on with it.
I never said Maldini was the coach. What I said was that the players respected Maldini. They do not respect Pioli. That should be obvious to you by watching the games and how the players react and respond on the field.
It’s quite clear who kept the team focused and on the right path. (Hint: it wasn’t Pioli)
Besides, I quite clearly described Pioliball in my post above. Those are his tactics. Maldini is out of the equation now, so you can’t blame him for this years tactics.
But hey, you keep embracing Pioliball & Pioli. Me? I’ll wait for his excuses when we crash out of Europa. “Well, we outplayed them for 75 mins” after losing 3-0.
I respect Maldini and his works and i also got angry when he got fired.
But man, you’re embarassing yourself if you think all of the glory and good results was Maldini works.
Spot on. It’s easy to identify one who actually watches our games and has been a fan for a while. Honestly not even Burnley will be this lenient with Pioli. End this tragedy already please Cardinale.. it’s so painful watching Milans game play these days.
If we looked inter now, its conte job done. They guts, vision, guerra and the mentality its conte job. Simone inzaghi only the take over the situation. 70% inter squad now its conte legacy.
The obstacle is does milan want to pay conte expensive salary? I dont think so…
So true! Inzaghi is just an empty suit. He has nothing to do with how the squad plays. It was Conte all along. Just like how Napoli’s scudetto last season is actually Gattuso’s. People say that Conte is not a good coach in Europe, but he went to the semis last season. Idiots. Besides, 3-5-2 would be the perfect solution for us. We can bench Lazy Leao and Ineffective Pulisic, have Cafu’s heir Calabria bombing down the right making pin-point crosses, all while playing all of our primavera CBs. Problems solved! /s
Why would you want conte ..this would be a huge mistake and take us backwards..
Just cannot understand some of you unappreciative fans …if you are real fans you would wait until the end of the season to pass judgement..pioli has brought success to this club,,,but football sometimes doesn’t always go the way we think or want ..We all have opinions..for me I still believe poli is the best man to have at the helm
Just look at the situation the way that it is .
We are 3rd in the scuddeto…We can finish in the top four ,,so quality for the champions league next season .We can win the coppa cup …We should do well in the Europa league cup ..We can win it ..
I think our season has been a success,,given the amount of injuries we have had to contend with .
I have been involved with football for a long time .
Yes we do need to address why we have so many injuries…i believe if we had not had all these injuries we possibly could have won the scuddeto,,and possibly still been in the champions leauge.
That said don’t believe for one minute that a new manager will result in instant success,,,it doesn’t work that way very often…time is needed so please wait until the season ends before making a regrettable decision…I have told you in advance .
we can do all that IF we fire the baldy
Exactly.. just fire the baldy.. anything would be an upgrade at this point. If there’s no money, just promote Abate. I’m sure Milan fans can stomach finishing sixth with abate as coach and clear plan to build something solid. We’ve been building backwards with Pioli … Enough
It is the players who are not performing well it not 100 percent poili fault milan has too many injuries I think it is more important to find out why instead of sacking poili let us wait for his contract to end then we will see what the way forward I hope that we continue to support the players available let help our loving team ac milan after the storm comes the sunshine. Milan for ever…Jimmy Elizabeth from seychelles.
The fact that Pioli was way above his level as far as appointing him manager/coach is concerned. This role was only possible if filled in by somebody with EPL experience. There, the Manager manages everything from recommending players to sign to making sure they eat right. At least such a person would have covered up some of the rot that was bound to show up after firing M&M