Stefano Pioli is a man that is under pressure at the moment, but it seems that pressure only extends to the fans and the media with the ownership keeping their full trust in him.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below), Pioli remains very much ‘on fire’ in the eyes of the ownership and the management at Milan, as a ‘gentleman coach who knows how to make the most of the technical capital available and obtain results’.
This summer, Pioli was put more at the centre of the project than ever before, becoming even more involved in transfer strategies and working in harmony with the CEO Giorgio Furlani, the chief scout Geoffrey Moncada and the sporting director Antonio D’Ottavio.
Pioli personally worked on signing new players, from Pulisic to Loftus-Cheek, from Reijnders to Chukwueze. He asked for and obtained functional profiles for Milan that he had in mind and the transfer choices were then followed by signs on the pitch.
The Milan head coach positively surprised the club’s top management: with such a profoundly renewed squad, a rocky ‘trial period’ was a scenario to take into account and instead Milan started immediately strong.
They skidded in the derby, true, but then started running again, climbing up to first place alone before losing it after the defeat against Juventus. In short, Pioli gained a bit of time and patience after performing above the initial forecasts.
The slowdowns in the big matches – Juve precisely, but also PSG and the draw against Napoli from 2-0 up – do not prevent Milan from looking at the rest of the season with the same confidence as in August.
Gerry Cardinale, RedBird’s number one owner of Milan, has never failed to support the coach either and he will be at San Siro for the return match against PSG next Tuesday. Then, perhaps, Milan will have started winning again, because Udinese arrive on Saturday: a delicate but absolutely in-reach match and it’s not the only one.
After having put almost all the head-to-head clashes behind them (only Atalanta remain to play), from now until the end of the first round the Rossoneri will play six matches out of nine against medium-low ranking opponents.
It is a great opportunity to rack up some points and perhaps get back into first, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic might be around to help provide a boost.
He retains the confidence of management because he’s a yes man. Plain and simple.
‘ownership and the management at Milan, as a ‘gentleman coach who knows how to make the most of the technical capital available and obtain results” . This means he doesn’t make much of a fuss and can consistently produce top 4 aka UCL money.
“This summer, Pioli was put more at the centre of the project than ever before, becoming even more involved in transfer strategies and working in harmony with the CEO Giorgio Furlani, the chief scout Geoffrey Moncada and the sporting director Antonio D’Ottavio.” Did they really just repeat what Scaroni said was the reason they fired Maldini??? Lol 😂 wow. “Working in harmony” so much so the same players start all the time and he never asked for a 6 which is the MOST crucial position in the 433….sorry I’m still not buying it