After their loss to Cremonese, there have certainly been a few worried about this season for AC Milan. Though there has often been a caveat.
Losing in the fashion in which Milan did on Saturday is never a positive. They were outclassed by a team who were in Serie B last season. All this despite the reset, which occurred over the summer. This is where the key issue lies.
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On the face of it, there has been so much change in the Rossoneri. A new sporting direction, a new manager and a lot of new players. Despite this, though, the Diavolo looked no different to the team which failed last season.
The same errors were present, and the same absent figures were missing.
Capello’s review
Today, another scathing review of the performance has arrived, this time from Fabio Capello, and his words to Gazzetta dello Sport (as seen below) do not paint a pretty picture…
“At a certain point, watching the game, I said to my wife: ‘This is last year’s team’. All the problems that were there last season emerged: slow pace, poor positioning when losing the ball, and, most importantly, a lack of character.”
Saying this on the day of Modric’s debut has an impact.
“Let’s leave Modric alone, he’s the classic exception that proves the rule. As for the rest, the flaws are obvious. Take Gimenez, he seems to struggle at San Siro. And then we’re back to the usual story: playing for AC Milan in that stadium isn’t like playing anywhere else.”
Allegri highlighted another problem after the match: “The team is struggling to perceive danger.”
“He’s right, but it all comes down to attitude and positioning. When Milan lose the ball, they’re always off-balance, and their opponents can exploit space and timing, because they start again with four or five completely free men. Loftus-Cheek, for example, struggles to get back, and Fofana pushes forward a lot: there were already signs of this against Bari in the Coppa Italia.”
Allegri can be criticised for everything, but not for neglecting the defensive phase, don’t you think?
“Of course, it’s indisputable. And I’m sure Max will work on it, because tactically it’s the first obvious flaw. Then there are the individual flaws: at Milan, you don’t mark by ‘feeling’ the attacker, you just look at the ball.
“Allegri will have to fix a lot of things, but the players need to be willing. Every now and then, on Saturday night, I saw someone come back ‘running’, without the right amount of malice. To give a counter-example, at Napoli, all eleven players, if they lose the ball, put themselves in a position to recover it or at least get back into position quickly.
“We didn’t see this at Milan last year, and we didn’t see it against Cremonese either.”
So far, we’ve talked about how not to concede, but have the Rossoneri convinced you in their manoeuvre?
“Obviously not. If you play at a slow pace, everything gets complicated. The only one who tried to turn on the light was Modric, but the difficulties started in defence, in the build-up.”
Despite the defeat, Allegri didn’t complain about the transfer market after the match, as Antonio Conte did after Napoli’s defeat in the first match against Verona a year ago. Why?
“Max has a different way of communicating; he’s always level-headed and wants to protect the team. That doesn’t mean, however, that he didn’t make his voice heard with the management. AC Milan, for example, didn’t have a real striker on the bench against Cremonese. I’m sure some other coach would have pointed that out to the microphones…”
So yesterday, at the meeting at Casa Milan, did Allegri make specific requests to the club?
“I definitely think so. I’ve said many times that teams are built with the tree theory: a solid central defender, a midfielder who screens and starts the play, and a centre-forward who scores. Something in the Milan tree is missing for Max, it seems clear to me.”
In the attack, however, Vlahovic is back in the spotlight, following the failure of the Boniface operation.
“I’ve said it and I’ll say it again: I could see Dusan being a good fit at Milan. Allegri knows him inside out. But I don’t want to replace Tare, who’s very good at his job. I’m convinced that in yesterday’s meeting, Max and Igli made a good assessment of what the team needs. Then, of course, we need to consider the club’s financial possibilities.”
After an eighth-place finish, isn’t there a risk of burning away the summer enthusiasm that accompanied the arrival of Tare and Allegri without a leap forward in the transfer market?
“There’s a risk. But ultimately, I remain confident, precisely because there are two excellent professionals like Igli and Max.”
Allegri, however, can only work on the pitch…
“And he’ll do it well. Clearly, AC Milan can’t be the team we saw on Saturday night against Cremonese, and the Livorno-born coach is the first to know it. He’ll roll up his sleeves, but so will everyone else, starting with the players.”
players strolling back to defend as if it was not their reponsibility stems from 2 things: lack of a team spirit or lack of stamina to make such runs and still have to initiate the attack later.
And self-respecting coach who sees that happen and does nothing about it should also be questioned.
Both Portuguese coaches pointed to the same thing as Max, lack of conviction,concentration and ability to convert easy chances. These are all traits of bellow par players who are not mentally fit to be among the elite in a top league. The difference between a top player and average one is often mental. We went for bottom bargains. Never let the team gel, for another summer due to late sales and acquisitions.
Same doodoo different day
Gimenez never seems to have that confidence needed. Worrying as it’s a mental thing.
It’s a bit early to draw conclusions about what will happen this season but the recipe is exactly the same since redbird fired the previous management and it looks bad already.
The coach doesn’t have a say about transfers (in and out) and plays a scheme that doesn’t fit the players brought in by Moncada the compulsive buyer. Furlani doesn’t extend the top players with high requests (Calhanoglu, Kessié, Théo, Maignan) and sells top players for “the right offer” (Tonali, Reijnders). Tare works under strict financial parameters and is doing the same job he was doing at Lazio under Lotito: sell a lot to get cash flow and don’t spend too much.
Like every summer, PR worked hard to convince media and fans that things have changed. Like every summer, the redbird army here is utterly optimist and celebrates any move (including Athekame who is a complete nobody).
Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat…
We have worse team than last year except for cm/cdm
pretty much. they signed bums and had 220 million euros to spend. Says everything we need to know
We had a few good signings and several bench warmers for depth. Definitely we need a starting CB and as minimum one striker that will challenge Gimenez.
But let’s not act like we sold Tiji for financial motives (price terms alone should be evidence for this). We sold him because he wanted the move and if he was going to push for it the whole summer it was going to be worse for the planning of the new season.
If you have the current midfield and you keep RLC and Fofana for 90 minutes with their defensive gaps and their willingness to kill some of the Curva Sud with their shots, it’s on you. Fofana is far from his best shape and if he has to score 15 goals, we better keep him in the training facility shooting all day long for a couple of weeks. RLC is very useful in some matches and completely useless in others. I don’t think it’s a form issue – he has characteristics that should be exploited by us and not by our opponents.
Couldn’t have put it beeter even if I tried, thank you.
Better*
Always funny how some people call for Leao to leave while we look super average without him on the field lol. I hope we can sell all Maldini’s players lol!
Funny will be if Camarda score against us 😂😂
I just thinking that will be,karma
In order to play like a team, you first need to create one. What we have, are a bunch of individuals just passing by because of this ownership’s business plan – buy low, sell high, make profit. Rinse and repeat each summer.
Milan’s problem is in the defense. How is it possible not to see this issue, year after year!!!!!
Its okie Moncada and his statistics will fix it all !!!!
Who would’ve thought player trading would result in bringing sub-par lazy players? I’m so shocked this ownership’s totally sporting project isn’t producing positive results. What a mystery!
We need to absolutely get another high level defender. This is more important than the striker.
We need a defender strong in the box and good with the ball. And hope that De Winter works.
Calgilari are a team to watch. Two touch football in the attacking space. Fofana and RLC can never play that brand of football. I don’t know what Allegri sees in those two. They players with name but with nothing they are good at.
Milan DNA is twin strike force, not 433.
Milan have lotsa bench warmer but few who play for the shirt. When will the attitude change? Probably when Redbird sells…
This team has no spirit n soul. I would have sold some of the midfield junks after watching them play
Not a terrible team but no team at all. Just like last season. Everyone plays for themselves and not for the team.
That is the consequences for having garbage in and Garbage out player in a team .RLC,Fofana,tomori,Pavlovic,Chukwueze,Gabia should be sold or you terminate their contract.Imagine same player that are liability still remain and be collecting weekly allowance without doing anything.Very soon Ac milan will bankruptcy
LOL. Terminate their contract? LOL. Sounds like a super-genius masterplan. It was easy enough with Origi too, now wasn’t it? 😀 😀 😀
You are right about one thing though… Terminating contracts would make Milan bankrupt. 🙂
It´s way too early to make all these conclusions. The Cremonese game wasn´t good but not terrible either. If we had a strong striker available, we would have won. Ok the defence needsto step up but it´s not as if Maignan got tested all night. We haven´t seen anything yet from most of the new players. We definitely need a striker but it´s too early to judge on all the rest. If Parma had a good striker they would have beaten Juventus because they gave away more chances then we did.
Ok Ben Dixon, “Outclassed”? Are you kidding me? yes we lost, but not because of the “class” of Cremonese, we lost on our own volition – but we also controlled much of the game. So, relax a bit and stop writing hyperbolic articles like this one!
Part of this is on Allegri in the lineup choices. You can’t use Fofana and RLC together like that and have Modric as the DM.
Modric needs to be further forward to get the attack humming. Capello says Milan are slow in the build up…..LM can fix that. Get Ricci and Jashari in there. Both young with fresh legs who are willing to do the dirty work.
If you use Fofana at all he should be where Modric played against Cremonese. RLC is a sub only.
Gimenez is only on the team for the Mexican market. It’s really not worth it to make a poor player a starter just because his country offers a stream of revenue. With Pulisic, he was bought because of the USA market, but he is actually one of the best players on the team, different situation than Gimenez.
We need to accept that we can’t cater to Mexico and win, at least not with Gimenez.
RLC cannot play with the ball at his feet with no space. He looked like a giraffe on roller skates for the first time and counted at least eight times that he went down with the softest of contact. Fofana took Allegri comments about him and RLC needing to score 15 goals to the extreme. Enough already with him shooting outside the penalty area since they all land in the stands. Gimenez is too slow for a CF. He receives the ball and takes forever to make the first touch and by that time the opposition of closed in and takes the ball away. Milan moved the ball better down the wings at the start of the second half due to Jimenez coming on. Start Ricci and Jashari and Jimenez the next game and I would expect a much better result.
Senior Capello, do Milan a favour and come out of retirement to coach Milan for a couple of years. You have identified the greatest problem of Allegri that is leading to numerous other problems….
SLOWWWWWWW PACE GAME…
If you can identify problems, you can fix them. Allegri doesn’t think slowness is a problem so it will not be fixed and hence other problems that come from this slowness will also not be fixed. Come of retirement senior. If it this dumbass management had the head to fire Zlatan and put you in charge or at least create a position of Technical Director for you.