AC Milan’s defeat against Udinese deepened the ongoing crisis and confirmed the six-point gap with Inter in first place. For the Rossoneri, it’s a great shame to start focusing on the top four already in November, as Andrea Longoni highlights.
At this point last season, Milan were in second place with 26 points thanks to eight wins, two draws and just one loss. Napoli were three points ahead and the Rossoneri still had a very good chance of defending the Scudetto. Today, however, the situation is very different.
Inter are six points ahead of Milan in the standings and the Nerazzurri have also looked a lot better. Not to mention that Juventus also are doing well. The Rossoneri will now do better to focus on a top-four finish, as highlighted by Andrea Longoni for MilanNews.
“The truth is that after yesterday, it’s better to focus on finishing in the top four. But doing so in November is a great shame and hurts a lot,” he wrote.
Milan will face PSG next and a good result will be needed to keep the knockout stages dream alive. Considering that the reverse fixture ended 3-0 in favour of the French side, though, it will be far from easy for Stefano Pioli and his men.
#pioliout
5th place to Scudetto contenders? Annihilated by Inter to Rivalling PSG? We sold our best midfielder to buy players teams judged to be surplus to requirements or problematic. They will push us to victory when their previous clubs with less ambitions saw them as less good? Or injury prone to the point they offered more liabilities than assurances.
This was an unacceptable strategy for Maldini, you see why. Slip ups from inconsistency cannot be allowed when becoming champions is the goal. Sure Tonali got tagged, we didn’t replace him with another Tonali level player though, we scaled back on the talent level. We couldn’t replace him because we were cheapskates due to our owners buddies being involved in recruitment with previous ownership that let our best midfielders leave instead of allowing our directors to offer half decent wages. It is costing us. It will continue to do so. We had to sell our best to get average players to make up for squad numbers. We never replace our free agent losses.
Ibra’s return is the only thing that gave this project a boost and helped us punch above our weight class. Without him, this club is toothless in front, no goals.
Krunic always sucked. Jovic fell off long time ago. Raindeer scored in a league where they can’t defend so he could prance in without pressure on him. Musah, good but is not close to finished product yet, or at a level for title contenders. RLC, Pulisic and Chuk are all unraveling infront of our eyes. They had injury histories so you had to expect this. We needed a sure shot signing in Central defense, in the LB, the midfield, and up front this summer. We couldn’t afford this predictable outcome.
Berardi is looking like a a genius signing now.
Imagine… if we had Botman, Berardi, Kamada and Thuram along with RLC in the squad with a new coach this season. All holes in ST, RW, CAM and CB filled.. and Kamada + Thuram would’ve arrived for free, with Simic, Bartesaghi, Colombo promoted.. moreover we wouldn’t have to deal with CDK..
AT. ALL.
PSG, NewCastle and Dortmund would’ve been scared of Us instead of the other way around.
You dreaming
Yep lol
Lol, here comes the Pioli defense brigade to attack the ownership. Best financial position since 2006! It’s like money grows on trees for some! Can you tell me where to find the money tree?
Imagine… if we had Botman, Berardi, Kamada and Thuram along with RLC in the squad with a NEW COACH this season.
How’s that defending Pioli? lol
Whoops. Misread that. Still, it’s a lot of imagining. We made attempts for 3 of those 4 players, and they chose clubs offering higher wages. Then, what is Kamada doing? He’s made 2 appearances and has 0 goals and 0 assists. Finally, no way we were paying 40m for 29 year old Berardi. As a matter of fact, nobody wants to pay that for Berardi, hence why he’s still at Sassuolo (and possibly because he has no ambition).
Pulisic misses one match, which he could have made, but he’s being “saved” for PSG, and he’s “unraveling in front of our eyes?”
BTW, under normal circumstances, I would have agreed whole-heartedly to hold Pulisic back, but given the state the squad was already in, I think the fact that Pulisic was not even on the bench, “just in case,” is another indication that Pioli took Udinese lightly, one of his many mistakes the past two weeks.
Whether it is a win against PSG, the return of The Zlatan, or lightning bolts from the Heavans, the entire club needs a spark to get everyone to start rowing in the same direction, on the same beat.
Finally, if there is ONE group within the club that need to be sacked immediately, and CAN be replaced fairly quickly, it’s the training/physio staff. I don’t know much about them or their training tactics, but the numbers are what they are. If it was just this season, we could say “tough luck,” but bad luck eventually gets balanced by good luck, and doesn’t continue, year after year, for five-plus years.
exactly; this is still November. giving out now would be a great shame. so don’t. don’t give up. the team need to do better from now on. the management need to make sure of it. whatever it cost.
We’re only in November….
The media just doesn’t take responsibility.
A few months ago we were going to win everything.
Now we have a dip in form and it’s the end of days.
If we come out of this dip in form the same media will just pretend these dire predictions never happened.
Come January (or before because Christmas starts after Halloween) the media will be spruiking more and more signings.
Suddenly we’ll be back on top (maybe with a new manager) and the sky will be the limit again.
Before we come crashing down again to reality.
Kids. Don’t do drugs.
Leao and Krunic should play for West Brom.
Without Leao, Milan do not even begin.
Everything in the hands of the management. Same storylines 2nd season in a row.
Exactly. Seems not much has changed. As I said in previous posts – seems we have the same problems as last season despite what many claimed – at least on this chat – was a fantastic summer transfer window that would solve all the problems Maldini couldn’t and that Furlani was “cooking” lol. Cooking what exactly??? 😂😂
The most important position on the pitch – striker – was ignored – and we PASSED on players like Thuram, Lukaku and Taremi – who are actually “cooking” for their respective teams – and instead of addressing that critical need with a real player we instead take Jovic who nobody wanted and who Fiorentina even terminated his contact and practically begged us to take him lol. On top of it we were ok to spend 60+ million on midfielders BUT didn’t get a midfield playmaker and didn’t get a true DM – AND spent 50M plus on 2 right wingers – and one of them that cost 30M can’t stay healthy and has thus far been a bust. And still NO backup LB (so Theo has to play every game) and passed on Singo who is “cooking” for Monaco.
And to top it off we fired the “shield” (Maldini) that protected Pioli and helped smooth things over in the dressing room AND didn’t REPLACE him – which is why we are now begging for Ibra to return – to help Pioli deal with the players and management.
Just shows how inexperienced Furlani is. I’m sure he will be a great director IN TIME. BUT it was a gross mistake to entrust Pioli with all this power and a gross error not realizing Maldini’s impact in the dressing room and gross error failing to replace him with someone well respected like an Ibra IN THE SUMMER. It Was also foolish to pass on Lukaku and Thuram and/or Taremi – all were low cost options all available to us. I would have rather not spent 20M on Musah (who I like) if that meant we could sign one of those strikers. CHEMISTRY MATTERS. You cannot bring in 10-12 new players and expect them to “cook”. It takes years to build a championship side.
Still time to turn things around, but boy we don’t look to good right now and PSG is calling. Let’s pray the boys wake up Tuesday and let’s hope Pioli can dig us out of this mess.
If we’re having the same problems as last season, and there is only one thing that didn’t change from last season, then maybe that thing is the problem. Can you guess what (who) I am referring to?
You are mostly right. It’s a bit simplistic (Pioli is not the only problem) but not far from true.
I remember a person who anticipated this problem and wanted to resolve it but got fired in the summer…
@ Juro, very well said.
True but again Maldini wanted to bring Pirlo as a new coach. And Maldini’s targets, aside from Kamada and RLC, were not really impressive and were gonna lose Tonali anyways.
I do think Pioli is one of the big problems with this team, but frankly Maldini didn’t seem to have to magic recipe to get us out of this mess.
@Giga94, Pirlo would have been an unmitigated disaster.
Pls…get Phillips from man city
Sack pioli and Get conte he is free.we need to change our mentality in the pitch
I wonder if peopel still think you will not be a contender this season.
Imagine that team with a proper coach tho.. uff
I think that most of us cosidered top four to be the goal with this coach before the season started, given the replacements..
No, actually, I thought we mount a proper title challenge. I didn’t think we’d be the favorites (Inter is clearly the strongest (on paper) in Serie A right now), but we would be competing. The loss against Inter (a team that owns Pioli, but this is a different story) aside, we lost against a Juventus that we were dominating until our brainless high-press-at-all-costs was exposed, dropped points at Napoli when winning 2-0 at half time and again being brainless after half-time and not protecting the lead and also putting in some rando CB that wasn’t ready (by the genius coach’s own admission) instead of moving Theo central and putting Florenzi on the left as he eventually did, and then this dismal loss to Udinese, a club that hadn’t won in like 15 games stretching back to last season. Until this run of games we were squarely in the title challenge, and that is WITH all the injuries.
Oh, and isn’t it funny how we seem to have a moment in the season where we lose or fail to win a game unexpectedly and then tank for about a month? See the Roma 2-2 last season and the 6 weeks that followed. We were in second place, 4 points behind Napoli, we dropped that 2-0 lead to Roma and then we just collapsed. 2-5 and 4-0 losses to Sassuolo and Lazio followed, then some Pioli tactical “experiments” and then we ended up finishing 5th, only qualifying for the CL because of Juve’s punishment. This should have been the alarm bells on Pioli. He makes stupid tactical choices and then cannot lift the team when they’re down.
Well tbh Scaroni did say top 4 was the objective and not necessarily winning🤷♂️. He literally said just as long as we’re in the UCL that’s fine by him (ambitionless and probably the reason for disagreements with Maldini, a chronic winner)
I think this is a short term goal dude. We just balanced the books for the first time in 15 years. It’s only our third consecutive CL appearance after not participating for 8 years, and we’re still transitioning away from Banter Era type players (like Messias, Saelemaekers and Krunic), because you just can’t do it in one summer without the prerequisite income (see below). We still don’t even have a proper striker. ALL major clubs seek to be in the top 4 at least, so that the CL money will create a base to attempt a title challenge, or at least maintain the present squad. Unless you’re owned by a petrostate (or a fake businessman) you can’t just spend 200m in one summer from mid-table to “see what happens”.
I think we’re in the same boat there bud. It’s why I don’t think it s a “great shame” to be top 4. It was the objective all along and one which is feasible. I also don’t mind consistently being in the UCL but I would prefer to want to win something