Since AC Milan lifted the Scudetto, the club has been on a downward path. Today, a report has attempted to look at the reasons for this.
If you offered anyone a chance to undo the past 30 months, any Milan fan would bite your hand off. It is an opportunity to go back to a moment far superior than the one that the Rossoneri find themselves stuck in at present.
But how was have got here?
As Gazzetta dello Sport reports, in the past two and a half years, the Diavolo have changed a lot, which has caused a rift between the two stages, a rift to a Milan that ‘no longer exists’.
Summer 2022
First, we go back to the summer after the Scudetto. A summer which was supposed to build upon the Scudetto foundations, but instead became a summer of undoing. Sven Botman was the big idea of the mercato, but as the report states, there was no budget for 2-3 top-level signings, which Paolo Maldini requested.
The tension between the two parties then grew as a strong Rossoneri became a short one – a squad with no depth and this was the beginning of the end of the project as it was.
Summer 2023
Just 12 months later, the Diavolo shot themselves in the foot. Tension was already there, but this worsened with the departures of Maldini and Sandro Tonali whilst retaining Stefano Pioli. For the fans, they had lost two huge symbols of the club and this once again damaged the club and the attempted repair is still ongoing, albeit unsuccessfully.
Six Milan derby defeats
We then move to the derby defeats – six in a row – a feat which is embarrassing for any club, let alone between two of the biggest rivals in World football. The losses were finished by a Scudetto win at San Siro, a feat which had never been done before, a feat which damaged the club immeasurably.
This season so far
The faults do not end there. Instead, they continue into this season. Firstly, the decision to not get Antonio Conte baffled the fans and with the coach leading Napoli to a title race so far, the decision has only backfired.
Following this decision, choosing to limit the mercato affected the trust in the management further. Dreams of a new number nine were in the clouds, but the club ended the season with two sub-par options in the minds of the supporters, another blow and protests followed.
Things came to a head against Genoa, a celebration of the club headlined by a 0-0 draw. Protests followed after the game and continued into the celebrations away from the stadium last night. A clear split between the fans and management.
For the fans, nothing works and the club has fallen far below its goals. Whilst there is a chance for a restart – against Verona, Roma and then in the Supercoppa Italiana, there is a lack of hope about whether this will come to fruition.
Restarting, as Gazzetta writes, is not impossible, but signs of it must be shown soon.
Redbird and Morata fan boys so quiet at the moment……🤔
Yep 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
The issue of Milan is not that Tonali left; he is a quality midfielder, but not one who can have a huge impact like say Rodri, Caicedo or Barella. The issue is that those who were brought in by Gerry&Co are mostly average or of a low quality. If instead of Tonali better players were brought in, the sale of Tonali would be a smart move.
Moneyball
We have strikers who consistently fail to convert chances, and this is a major issue. Management made a critical mistake by not securing a proven goal-scorer; Morata should have been a backup.
While Tiji and Fofana have excelled this season and Musah is finding his role, RLC is underperforming compared to last year when he was a key player.
If our strikers could finish better, this team would be much harder to stop and would concede fewer goals. A fearsome striker adds pressure to defenses and makes it hard for teams to counterattack us.
This is why Inter is so dangerous; their finishers, like Thuram and Lautaro, keep defenses on high alert. Leao, Morata, and Tammy simply lack the clinical edge we need. It’s time to find a striker who can deliver.
I expressed me issues over Morata pre season, got attacked by people claiming he was ‘world class’ and now we’ve been proven right, I never said Morata wouldn’t score goals, I said it’d be the ones he missed that cost us.. Tammy is good physically, Morata is more refined but if you combined them they still can’t finish….I pushed for Retegui 2 years ago….so frustrating
RLC has been underperforming because the space he typically utilizes to make the runs into the box has been occupied by Tiji, as part of Fonseca’s tactical setup. As a result, RLC has been forced to spend more time linking the midfield with the defense, which is not his forte. This shift also explains why Tiji has been significantly more productive this season compared to the last.
But Reijnders is the better player. RLC will never give a whole season at the highest level, you’ll get periods from him, he can’t be seen as a starter in my opinion
Agreed.
Tonali stats were actually very close to Rodri the year he left. But anyway, there is no point of selling him to just replace him with someone on the same lvl. Either you are ambitious and you look for someone better and spend more money, or you are not ambitios and are just looking for quick profit.
Tonali is not Pirlo or Gattuso kind, but i’ll be glade enough if he can be our Ambro (i believe he can).
he’s nt that great but perfect as foundation, he has enough quality + non-sporting points,
just like Calabria as our Billy/ Abate/ Bonera
Calabria is next to go. We wont see Italian players as first 11
Caicedo??? You talking about the midfielder that flopped his way through last season at Chelsea or someone else? Cuz he’s nowhere near Tonali level. But I agree with what you’re implying. Tiji is the only high quality midfielder we’ve acquired post-Tonali era, the others are either decent or below average.
They actually deliberately sabotaged the project Maldini had.
Nah man this is Akin to a betrayal of the club. They set Milan down this path it is now. And all for what??
Fans should stop going on home matches. Even if they prepaid for tickets. Thats why is always better to wait untill last minute to buy ticket or not.
But but but I thought “we’ve improved” /s
😆
Ha ha.
Are we at the ‘told you so’ stage?
No it’s the ‘if we saw it coming why couldn’t they’ stage
Ha ha.
Yeah I to think they’re people being paid seven figure salaries who didn’t see this coming!
Morata has had a long career, he’s a ‘decent’ striker, he historically scores 1 in 3 and has a habit of missing big chances….we knew what we were getting. The definition isn’t f madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result….not good enough
Pretty much same story with Abraham. I’m in
My 40s watched football for over 30, I’m no genius but I can put 2 and 2 together and predict an outcome.
I’m supporting Fonseca but again pre season I said he was average, you can’t criticise an average manager for doing an average job…it’s like criticising Fiat because it came do Ferrari lap times….madness
I’m seeing now the ‘told-you-so-ers’ have to deal with the ‘told-you-so-ees’ who are now spewing the classic “oh you want the team to fail” retort to save their blushes. Nah guys, if you’ve been looking at football long enough, it was so easy to predict. That why we said what we said..wasn’t a place of gate just knowledge. 17 changes in two seasons and ppl think things can just run smoothly as if nothing ever happened smh
We just want what’s best for the club. The moment a player pulls on the Milan shirt I support them, but it doesn’t mean I like or approve of the signing. There were so many better options but Redbird are cheap. It’s that simple.
Exactly..I don’t fancy Pobega for instance but as soon as he’s on the field I’m rooting big time for him to score, defend etc. we can all have our say, agreement or disagreements but at the end of the day the love for the club remains. Even I know ppl I disagree with it comes from a place of love for the colours 🙏
Well I’m in my 40s so ‘old’ in many peoples world 😂 but I think the biggest problem today is that many fans dimly have no idea how big this club is, or how good it was in the late 80s and 90s, not just through winning trophies but how they changed football and how it was played. I mean I remember watching us from 199-1994 and it was ‘so how many are we winning by today’ ….losing wasn’t even on my radar and a draw was disappointing
We’re so past it, it’s not even fun to rub it in certain people’s faces here. But I do see a lot of converts so that’s satisfying.
The biggest mistake was EVERYONE FREAKING OUT BECAUSE WE ONLY FINISHED 4TH BECAUSE PIOLI PRIORITISED THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE WITH FOURTH PLACE IN THE BAG.
Given many of the signings in the summer of 2022 actually turned out to be ok (Thiaw and CDK with only Origi being a disaster) it was more the decisions in the summer of 2023 that proved to be disastrous.
Getting rid of Maldini, Tonali and Krunic, and bringing in a load of randomers is what really started the rot especially because we lost control over the midfield.
All we needed in the summer of 2023 was to sign a player to replace Kessie (who should’ve been replaced the summer before) and a CF. That was it.
Instead we signed something like 12 players (lost count).
And we still managed to finish 2nd.
So what did we do?
FREAK OUT AND SACK PIOLI.
If we could at least approach things in a calm and calculated way that would make a huge difference.
We’re doing the exact same thing with our defence now.
Having completely dismantled our Scudetto winning midfield (which provided cover for our Scudetto winning defence) we’re now dismantling our Scudetto winning defence (having still not fixed our midfield).
Nothing learning from past mistakes.
I recall that whole flip flop with the league table well. People tend to have short memories on purpose. We had a game in the UCL which we prioritized (the same UCL those folks want to hang their hat on this season to say everything is going well all of a sudden but fail to do the same when pointing out that so called bad season…the hypocrisy), the league table had Juve with the docked points (-15) and we had to play Bologna. So Pioli made his choices based on the standings and fielded a completely new XI, zero starters that game, all players never played with each other. This in order to rest the stars for UCL. The result was a draw. A few weeks later, the league reinstated Juve’s points and they jumped close to or ahead us.
Im pretty sure if we had known what the actual table was going to be we wouldn’t be risking playing a whole new XI for the first time. Choices were made based on the standings as any normal coach would do.
If we had played our starters that game I’m pretty sure we’d win as Bologna struggled against a team that never played with each other.
And the whole Juve 4th issue would be moot because even with their reinstated points they wouldn’t have been ahead of us.
Also why are people excusing Juve cooking the books to make a point that they were somehow legit finished ahead of us? They didn’t. Without cooking the books they don’t get Vlahovic, Chiesa etc. Those in players were like solid 10-20 points back then. Come on now. And they’re still reaping the benefits of the cooked books from years past…they still have Vlahovic don’t they? Smh 🤦♂️
It’s honestly like arguing with rival fans around here where they constantly give the benefit of doubt to other teams and players, and downplay the success of OUR team, OUR players.
One of the Z’s the other day called it ‘just entertainment’. He seems to think a 0:0 draw with Genoa playing with a bunch of randomers is ‘entertainment’.
If it’s ‘entertainment’ people are after they really need to find a new team or new hobby.
This Milan is another painful experience that can only really be explained with irrational emotions like love, tribalism or madness!
FACTS – 💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯
the best gift Inter get is jeri bought Milan
Matching the arrival of Gerry. No investments, no ambition. Back to reality we poor ya bish
where are all the statisticians these days.
Gerry, Furlani, Moncada and Co must all go.
Folks here massacred Maldini for bringing in Origi on a free but forgot he also brought in Ibra and Giroud on a free. 2 out of 3 turned out great, still folks lost their sh*t over Origi.
But spending 200 millions where only 60 millions actually brought added value (Puli, Reijnders, Fofana) and we’re sitting in 8th place behind Bologna with banter era statistics is somehow seen as progressivness.
I don’t seem to understand this new, modern way of running a football club. What a boomer.
Facts!
Exactly
it’s not running.. it’s ruining a football club