Stefano Pioli’s decision to make a number of changes to the line-up did not pay off on Friday as Milan were held to a 0-0 draw by Empoli, once again exposing the lack of quality depth.
MilanNews recall how the Rossoneri sent 23 shots towards Perisan’s goal of which only four were on target as a fully rotated attack failed to show any sort of clinical nature. This must force important reflections regarding the management of the squad and the summer transfer window.
Of course Milan expected more from some of their players such as Ante Rebic who has battled injury problems and inconsistency for months now, while Divock Origi has been a let down and players like Tiemoue Bakayoko are a mystery.
Charles De Ketelaere has lost a starting spot he had at the beginning of the season, while Aster Vranckx and Yacine Adli have barely been seen and Tommaso Pobega has also been used sparingly.
Milan find themselves with a bench from which they could not cannot count on three midfielders, one winger and one striker. It will be there that the focus of Maldini and Massara will have to concentrate to provide Milan in 2023-24 with enough depth to make the team competitive on all fronts.
Yes they are lack of experience on mercato and milan have issue when they must selling the players. I guess milan must sign at least one of transfer Guru on his side.
There is no such thing as “quality depth”.
First if a player is “quality” they won’t be used for “depth”.
Second the fact that they are “depth” means they’re not playing regular which is essential to maintaining their “quality”.
The “quality depth” myth is just more nonsense to fuel the transfer market as teams pursue the completely unrealistic goal of having 2 perfectly formed options for every position.
Most top teams have a guaranteed starting 11, with 1 or 2 players pushing to break in, and another 4 or so providing for rotation – a core of about 16 players. They then have another 7 or so players to deal with injury crises – a maximum squad size of about 23-25.
Man City have a squad of 23. Milan have a squad of 30!
Nicky Butt used to cover across the midfield four for Man Utd treble winning side even covering for Giggs and Beckham.
Iniesta, generally a starter, was deployed in midfield and attack to allow for the Barca front three to be rested.
Juve’s great midfield “three” consisted Pirlo, Vidal, Marchisio and Pogba, with Cáceres covering across the BBC back three.
The mistake that Pioli has made is not using Rebic as a utility player across the front three. Instead of resting all three players in one game, he should’ve rested the three of them over the course of three games with Rebic filling for one of them over each of those games.
i often like your comments here on sempremilan but i do find the idea of what you are saying here in regard of quality depth nonsense.
– does city not have quality depth ?
– does real madrid not have quality depth ?
– does psg not have quality depth ?
– Did the ac milan teams of the 80’s, 90ies or 00’s not have quality depth ?
yes they do and did have quality depth on the bench
I do agree though that utlizing players better would give some extra to the squad and i agree that its pretty common practice to field players as you mentioned.
In the end less can do as well but it makes us more vulnable and in that sense weaken us if we get struck by an injury crisis as we already seen this year.
Thank you for mentioning the AC Milan teams of the 80s and 90s….with the great.
Shall we look at the 94 Champions League final?
With Costacurta and Baresi both suspended Panucci moved to left back and Maldini and Filippo Galli playing CB. (In fact Milan basically got through that season with 6 defenders: Galli covering both CBs and Panucci covering both FBs.)
On the bench we had….wait for it…. Mario Ielpo, Stefano Nava, Angelo Carbone, Gianluigi Lentini‘a ghost and Marco Simone…
Most of these players were here journey men rather than super world class phenomenons. Except for Maldini and Baresi many would be lucky to be playing on Serie B today.
What’s changed?
Has a football mad national of 60m people forgotten how to play football?
As for Man City in 2023 – whilst they have 23 players in their squad they deploy Stones as a CB, FB and even DM. 7/23 players have played fewer than 10 premier league games which is consistent with that approach of having a core of about 16 playing regularly.
It’s the same with Real. Not so much with PSG but their squad size is one of their biggest problems – they have too many top players which undermines the stability.
i did aknowledge the fact of using payers in various positions and i do also aknowledge that not every player will be stars but thats not the same as saying teams doesnt have quality depth.
Milan always also had some younger players that never got a single match ever in the club or only 1 or a few ones so its not like im saying that its a must that everyone is stars but there is still some difference between that and saying quality depth isnt a thing.
those teams mentioned has so much quality depth at their benches where a great deal of those players would easily slot in on our first teams. If thats not quality depth then i dont know what is.
My issue is the word “quality”.
We’re talking about the top 0.000001% of footballers on the planet.
In the case of Origi and Rebic we’re talking about players who have performed at the highest levels: Origi in the Champions League; and Rebic has been key in big games for Milan.
Just because it’s not working for them now does not mean they’re not “quality” players. It means that there’s something wrong. My guess is that it’s their lack of game time due to a combo of injuries and being the “depth”.
This obsession with “quality” is also what drives so much waste in football. Milan went through literally hundreds of strikers over the past 10 years and many failed (or like Cutrone were sold even when they didn’t fail).
It’s all been a total waste of time and talent. Had we just stuck with the same players and stopped this constant fiddling we’d have solved the problems ages ago. In part a degree of stability is what has brought us back to the top of Serie A.
It’s not “quality”, it’s having a coherent, tightly knit group of players who play in an almost robotic fashion.
That’s how the likes of Giaccherini have won titles. Not because they were super world class players but because they played consistently in a well drilled side.
The players you mentioned also has qualities so its not the definition of quality depth only has to be the messis or ronaldo type of players as i see it at at least
For me quality depth doesnt mean quantity like having for example 30 star players but a high bottom level on the bench and that can be with a squad of 23-25 as well with maybe a couple of players that might only be fillers.
As disapointed i was in us selling cutrone we got a fair share of cash for him that helped us make other moves in the market. He had by the way his contract rescinded by wolves and now plays in como in serie b so in that sense it was a smart choice even though i adored cutrone and feel sorry for him. When that s said im not saying clubs should just splash the cash each year. For example chelsea buys unreasonable while affecting markets and ends up discarding players quickly so we are not disagreeing here thats for sure as i pretty much detest how the sport has developed to become a monopoly by the rich clubs.
Coherency in a club is deffently of great importance and it might trump a stong squad.. Im from denamark and even though we won the euros 92 it wasnt because we had the best team but because we had the right fighting spirit + some talent/quality but overall the fact we was a tight nit group helped us get the championship.