Stefano Pioli has been heavily criticised in the last few weeks and his situation wasn’t helped by AC Milan’s 2-2 draw against Lecce yesterday. As Andrea Longoni argues, the manager’s time at the club has come to an end.
The Rossoneri headed into the half-time break with a 2-0 lead and the mood was very positive, seeing as the performance was good as well. In the second half, however, Pioli’s men collapsed yet again. They were lucky to come away with one point in the end.
In his latest editorial for MilanNews, Andrea Longoni discussed the dire form of Milan and shared his thoughts on the future of Pioli. In his eyes, the manager’s cycle at the club has already come to an end and this is something the management must take into consideration.
“There is a black, deep and endless crisis in the league. Just two points collected in the last four games, including two draws suffered that were the result of sensational comebacks. The situation is embarrassing, to say the least.
“It’s equally clear that this is a gigantic accusation against Pioli. Let’s discuss the decision. Milan were on the brink of winning for the first time in a month, and then he fielded Musah as a full-back. Why? Musah is very flexible, but let him be a midfielder.
“It’s not the only questionable decision. The defensive line was too high against Juve and PSG (away). Subbing on Romero for Pulisic against Napoli. The 4-4-2 against Udinese. Pioli’s cycle seems to have come to an end. If you don’t want to change today, it will be a long time until June.
“In the meantime, the Scudetto dream is gone and today the team risks slipping to fourth place. In case of a victory, Bologna would be just two points behind Milan,” he wrote.
Milan will face Fiorentina after the break, hoping to end the negative trend. It remains to be seen if a solution can be found to the injury struggles during the break. Having suffered a whopping 24 injuries so far this season, it’s evident that something needs to change.
The pioli lovers are yet in their honeymoon and no hint of divorce will be tolerated😂😂😂😂. Cardinale and the Almighty moncada and furlani will come to their senses by the time Milan came down crashing into the bottom half of the table. Then his ego and vain trust in a failure of a manager who hasn’t won anything of note in his entire period of football adventure, credited with the success of ibrahimovic and maldini(duo who had tasted and understood the ingredients to success)….now I have stopped long time ago to waste my hard earned money on a failed managers team….. Not until he is fired Milan will keep sinking in the mire.
Im not his supporter or hater but see yesterday’s two goals for lecce was simply a mistake from Musah and you can’t blame pioli for that right ? Even Pobega and Krunic didn’t help too much in midfield but because of Musah we lost that match
Please how is the mistake not the fault of Pioli,he brought Musah in to replace Calabria when we have Florenzi on the bench.
It’s as if you need goal and you’re subbing out a striker to field a defender does it makes any sense?
Bunny you are mad.. Do you enjoy Milan football.. Bunny Krunic and Pioli out Milan.. My heart blood so badly and I have been crying For the sack of Pioli
its true. Pioli foked up.
You’re two up, its second haf and you need to sub your rb. Who will you play? A veteran rb of 32 who is having a good season btw or a 20yo midfielder who played rb like once before and even that was rwb?
It was a matter of who would keep up with Banda. Florenzi sure as $h!t wouldn’t have. I understand why Pioli subbed him in. It was a gamble, and it didn’t pay off unfortunately.
My issue is more with why we didn’t slow the game way down in the second half and just controlled the game…
Don’t have to keep up if you position yourself in the right position.
Bro positioning trumps pace all day. You tell me we couldn’t sit deep and double on Banda. It’s Banda, not Mbappe
A lot of people will say here this has nothing to do with Maldini(especially) and Masara. Milan is bigger than Maldini etc etc.
What if Maldini as an experienced player who has worked with a lot of top managers, he realised last season that the tactics, techniques and team management adopted by Pioli will continue to result in inconsistent performances no matter the players. Hence, the rumours of him wanting to replace Pioli are the time.
From last season we have seen Pioli made questionable decisions in team selection, substitution and tactics. Also, the training methods or lack thereof could now also come into question.
@I_AM_MJ. Maldini wanted to replace Pioli with Pirlo. That’s even worse. Pirlo is coaching Sampdoria in Serie B and they are in the relegation zone.
Maldini and Massara had to go and Pioli should have been sacked with them. Plain and simple.
Plain and simple???
This is the team that met expectations in the league and surpassed them in Europe.
Plain and simple???
And the Pirlo thing sounds completely made up as does everything because it’s pure speculation!
Plain and simple?
How about trying to be less confident about completely nonsense?
Plain and simple?
Yep.
What if we didn’t in fact need to change half the squad and had just hired a new manager?
I wouldn’t have been against replacing Pioli in the summer, and certainly would’ve preferred it over the revolution.
Managers do make the biggest difference (see Utd since Ferguson).
And Pioli made a big difference to Milan when he joined. He took the exact same players who had been struggling and (with the help of Kjaer and Ibra’s January signings and the Covid break) turned them into title contenders (which contrary to popular opinion lasted for 2 years until the World Cup).
In fact Pioli is the best the argument for replacing Pioli mid-season given it was the decision to hire Pioli mid-season that took us back to the top!
And Pioli himself was a hugely unconvincing hire who proved everyone wrong!
Hopefully he does so again.
You are sack too
Well said, but, we can’t keep going back to Maldini era. Didn’t watch most of the second half, but, saw Lecce’s third goal, and left. A friend of mine made me know it was cancelled. I have not felt like this since Liverpool – Milan game in 2005. Pioli deserves to be sacked, if I have to go by the way I felt yesterday. But, the season is still long. Tactically, I have really been disappointed this season, even against PSG, that we won. We defended so much at home, against a team that was walloped by Newcastle. However, if they are going to keep him, then, some things have to change.
Not only that he played Musah in a position he never ever played as right back .but why is nobody saying anything about that Pioli in 3 years has never had a tactic on corner kicks and free kicks ??? Why???? We don’t exist..we don’t treat anyone when it comes having a corner kick not even a team from Seria d would be scared if we will play against them and have a corner kick….,?? Pioli has to go far,far away from US ..
If inter wins today it wil be 9 points and surely it would be a fairly huge hurdle to overcome but come on the scudetto fight is far from over BUT at this point i think its nevertheless fair to question whether pioli is the right man for the job as he makes some really questionable decisions from time to time that ends up hurting us. When that is said if so then the squad is also up for question as they seem fragile minded at times and the management has also a part in this so they should be in question as well. I wouldnt mind us getting de zerbi or a big name coach but that seems unlikely to happen and replacing pioli at this point just for sake of replacing him is that really also the smartest thing to do as we cant just pick and choose as we see fit and theres also the matter of our salary cap so im kinda in between. A new coach would also need some adjustment time and get to know the players and that at a point where most starters wont be avaiable to him so that could also worsen the situation as i see it.
In the end we certainly should be able to expect a lot more from all involved and i could see him getting canned if we doesnt progress from the cl group and that could already happen against dortmund if we lose that game.
If Inter wins today, then they will be eight points clear of us thanks to hard earned draw against mighty Lecce.
Oh i misread the points, thanks for clarifying it. Well it was a pathetic second half that’s for sure but eight points isnt insurmountable either even if things look really bleak at the moment.
Eight points is insurmountable since it’s early November. I am really starting to question Pioli and his dubious decisions, eight points is insurmountable as long as Pioli doesn’t make dubious decisions.
Insurmountable?
I’d luv it if we beat them. Luv it.
(Hope you get the reference….)
If you think its insurmountable and im not trying to offend you here but then you havent watched football for a long time or has some serious issues with matematics. Even in the banter era milan got close to cl qualifications with some great run of forms and closed a gap of 10 points, im just saying its far from impossible and knowing inter then they will most likely have their own slip ups. Obviously not an easy task but far from insurmountable.
@Martin Perhaps it’s a language issue? I said it’s insurmountable; because i exactly beleive that we can close 8 points gap. The word insurmountable means-too good to overcome; that’s why I said it’s insurmountable.
@Martin sorry I must confess that i got it wrong, i meant that- we can can close the gap between us and Inter so relax we are on the same page!🙂
Its ok as we are also just speaking together and tries to keep a decent tone between us but this is also a definition of it and thats why you meant the completely opposite,
“adjective. incapable of being surmounted, passed over, or overcome; insuperable. an insurmountable obstacle. Derived forms. insurmountability or insurmountableness.”
Which then means its not possible to reach such goals and in this case 8 points isnt that much considering that a lot of the big teams will be playing against eachother while we play against “lesser” teams. Obviously we cant keep playing as we did in the second half against lecce because then we certainly would be out of the question but in a 3 point system things can fairly easy change on a platter.
why i thought you meant ……
Yep I remember that during our Scudetto season, we were on trailing position for majority of the campaign. So i still have faith! Especially given what happened in Naples earlier today.
Oh i hadnt seen that 😀 udinese is currently also leading 1-0 against atalanta, with less than ten minutes left of the match.
I see a lot of football lovers already understood this manager is damn average! Even abate has a team strategy! I wonder how pioli got his coaching licence! Perhaps I could also tried my luck with the FIGC…. After all if I could intelligible defend a thesis, that’s means qualification! That’s an absurd criterium for licensing…. Cuz this man is one of the worst Italian coach I have ever seen
All the wrong episodes mentioned are valid and there is no doubt many of the points lost were a consequence of bad management from Pioli. Injuries etc are playing a part but the high defensive lines and wrong subs are clear as day.
On the other hand who can realistically be an improvement on Pioli now in January? Would it get even worse with virtually no adaptation period? Like when Potter replaced Tuchel at Chelsea?
Well , if we keep losing points it will have to be done.
Maldini’s Heir is one of the most delusional people on this site. Gotta be Pioli’s nephew or something..
The tenure of our Mister will eventually be decided by the results.
But 2 things are really bothersome.
Firstly, our injuries. If we have to scramble and play our 3rd GK at one point of time, this is not funny. If this goes on, we will need to buy another 10 players next season to have a 3rd team (so as to always anticipate one team in the sick bay!).
Secondly, clarity. Whenever the team fails, the Mister will always say the team is missing ‘clarity’. Calabria also lamented a lack of ‘clarity’ in his recent outburst. Are both parties on the same page with regards to ‘clarity’? Or, could it be the Mister expects the team to play according to his instructions, whereas in actual fact, the team is not exactly clear what his instructions are … perhaps this is where Zlatan is asked to come in. An Interlocutor of sorts.