Sky journalist believes Pioli is ‘more at risk’ than Inzaghi for ‘two reasons’

By Oliver Fisher -

Journalist Giancarlo Padovan believes that Stefano Pioli has put his own position as head coach of AC Milan at risk because of two key reasons. 

It has been a quite disastrous 2023 for Milan so far in every competition bar the Champions League and the stats speak for themselves as Milan are now 22 points behind leaders Napoli and there has never been a bigger gap to top spot for a defending champions in the three-points-per-win era.

Only Cremonese (23) and Salernitana (23) have conceded more league goals than the Rossoneri in 2023 (21), while Milan have lost seven games this year when factoring in all competitions which is far more than any top four rival.

Padovan spoke during a column for Calciomercato.com and the Sky journalist revealed his belief that Pioli’s position is not as watertight as other sections of the media have perhaps suggested it is.

“Just over a year ago, Milano had won everything. The Scudetto with Milan, the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa with Inter. Grateful to Pioli and Simone Inzaghi, the respective clubs had renewed the contracts of their coaches extending them until 2025 (Pioli) and 2024 (Inzaghi),” he said.

“Today, less than three months from the end of the season, everything has changed to the point of questioning both of them. However, at the moment, Pioli is more at risk and for two reasons: the minimum objective of the season (qualification in the Champions League) is not at all safe and the team’s game has regressed to the point of being cloying.

“We had all been in too much of a hurry to judge Milan as being healed after the bad month of February. In reality, the 3-4-2-1 was a palliative that camouflaged some problems without solving them.

“Today Milan, as well as losing, are off without a glimmer of logic and with nebulous prospects. When you change your game system, and you believe you have found the solution, it really means that the situation is not only serious but deceptive.

“Pioli – and this is what worries the most – tried to stimulate the group, but the answers didn’t come. And now the coach is likely to make a hasty return to the back four. But if Milan do not find cohesion, compactness and pride, they will fail across the board. And Pioli will most likely be left without a team.”

Tags AC Milan Stefano Pioli

18 Comments

    1. We can blame Pioli for not giving other players in the squad the right opportunities and sticking with basically the same layout and format every game expecting things to change… his days are numbered unless he has a rabbit hidden in his hat.

      1. Exactly. It looks like Pioli isn’t even trying as he approaches each match with the same men, same formation and same (lack of) tactics. He does NOTHING to fix the issues.

    2. actually he is to be blamed. I find it hard to believe that Maldini and Massara are not speaking with Pioli on the players they are trying to sign. Maybe they are maybe not.

      But Pioli has done a bad job to integrate Adli who in my opinion offers more than CDK yet he is not given a fair chance to play and prove himself.

      Also, Pioli should have kept his back 4 and add and extra man in midfield so he could keep the balance of the team in tact.

      Playing 433 made more sense with the players we have in the squad like Tonali, Krunic, Bennacer, Pobega, Bakayoko and Vranckx instead of playing 3421.

      Milan should replace Pioli with Sarri and let him control the players coming in and out to fit his system.

      Sarri won titles with Juventus and Chelsea so he knows how to win and play attractive attacking football if given the right players.

      But instead Massara is looking at Luis Enrique according to rumors. Smh

      1. Sarri has won titles, with Chelsea and Juventus, because they have money to spend! You can see; his record with Napoli and Lazio.. IMHO Enrique, is a more proven coach than Sarri..

        1. Chelsea didn’t have that much money when Sarri was there relative to anyone else in the PL. Any club in the PL has a ton of money relative to Serie A. Juventus cheats, hence the 15pt penalty. Every 3 years the Agnellis have to bail the team out with a “capital injection” via their holding company Exor, from profits they make from Fiat or wherever else. In a point for Sarri, he would have won the Serie A title with Napoli had Juventus not built a team on cheating.

          That being said, Sarri is WAY better than Enrique. Speaking of clubs that spend more money than they have the only club Enrique has won with is Barcelona (with prime Messi btw). I could win with Barcelona. Enrique was midtable with Roma. He had a 15-7-18 record with Celta Vigo. Do you even research before you write things like this?

          Sarri is always at least in the CL if not winning something, with exception of Lazio last season, which again to Sarri’s credit spends even less than we do, and yet in the second year with his system is in 2nd place. And missing Immobile no less.

          1. I did my research before writing.. BTW Enrique was beginning his, managerial career with Roma.. He was an amateur coach, back then! Sarri, was managing second, third tiers side until 2014.. When Sarri, secured his first job in a top division club, Enrique was already winning treble with Barcelona.. If you are saying it’s because of Messi.. Then Sarri had Ronaldo, even then he was knocked out, of UCL by a mediocre Lyon side!

          2. Most importantly; Sarri couldn’t even guide Lazio, to knockout stages of Europa League, from an easy group! And got knocked out of the Conference League, by AZ Alkmaar.. Even Valverde had Messi, in his team, but couldn’t win the UCL! If you are saying, he is a mediocre coach, from his Roma and Celta spells; then I could say the same about Sarri, from his past managerial records!

          3. Enrique got to start his career at Roma because he was a star player. Sarri was a banker until he was like 40. He had nothing to do with the sport. Isn’t it more impressive to go from never having played the sport professionally, having had a completely different career until midlife and then going on to win titles in two different leagues? All those ex-Barcelona players go straight to top management jobs because clubs believe that their success as players will translate as coaches. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. Sarri earned his chops by showing good football at lower levels. Let’s see if Guardiola, Enrique or Xavi can get a second division team promoted to a first division instead of getting a bunch of stars or a first division bench on a silver platter.

    3. He had Paqueta, a player better then Hakan but he didn’t played him. Now he has Adli, same thing. No point in giving him more players if he doesn’t use them.

  1. So Inter’s UCL spot is super safe because they have 2 points more than we do? Interesting concept. Pioli worked a miracle winning a scudetto with this team. Qualifying this team for UCL for 2 seasons straight was huge enough, at the beginning of last season winning a title was a feverish dream. A lot of people and journalists didn’t believe that team would even secure a UCL spot. Unfortunately, both ownerships, Elliot and Redbird, failed miserably at taking advantage of that momentum essentially wasting two transfer windows. The management has a responsiblity as well, specially in the way they have handled renewals and also in that clearly the CDK bet didn’t pay off (neither did the Raspadori bet at Napoli who cost Napoli about the same as CDK and is not getting much more of a sucess than CDK, but no one says anything because they’re getting results, just saying), and so does Pioli in that I feel his tactical struggles have made the team less confident and more confused; some of the players that were signed in the Summer maybe deserved more minutes for sure but that’s about it. Maybe last year’s scudetto was ironically the worst thing that could happen in that it made the ownership self-complacent, lazy, smug even, because the results were there so they failed to see the extent of the miracle that Pioli and the guys achieved and they are now seeing reality. I think that’s happened to a lot of fans too. Sometimes I fear that we can knock Napoli out of the champions league and get to the semi finals because the further into the competition we get the more the ownership will fail to acknowledge all the issues that we have, when in reality playing the UCL quater finals is almost a miracle. Pioli’s miracles have set the bar for himself too high up but that has caused him to be held to an unrealistic standard; if anything, he has done too well for his own good because people have normalized what he has accomplished with this team when it’s everything but normal. He needs to correct and adjust things but he is nowhere near the main problem. He needs another chance with a better transfer market, better planning, less injuries. Everyone raves about Napoli and deservedly so, but they did pay 70-75 million for Osimhen, didn’t they? Where would this Napoli be without Osimhen’s contributions?? Have we given Pioli that type of investment in a player?? Or have we let Donnaruma, Hakan, Kessie and Romagnoli leave for free, not being able to reinvest all that money from a potential sale to have a stronger team for Pioli?? Replacing a coach seems tempting because of how easy is seems but open you eyes and see under the surface.

    1. You’re very correct. I love your sense of reasoning. If Napoli had the injuries we had this season, they won’t be where we are today. Many of our players haven’t clicked but see how far we’ve come..imagine CDK, Adli ,Leao, Giroud etc clicking and see what we will ahieve

  2. Both of them are at risk, more so Inzaghi than Pioli.
    Inzaghi is the real problem at Inter. Inter has had the best squad, player by player for both years under Inzaghi and they failed to win the title.
    Pioli on the other hand works with a squad on a level with Roma, Lazio, Atalanta and has performed miracles over the last 3+ years with bunch of misfits. Pioli also was not helped by his management who keeps losing his best and favorite players for free without replacing them.
    IMO you cannot fire Pioli unless you firing Maldini and Massara.
    If Pioli goes , the other 2 should go with him. They are more of the problem then he is.

    1. “Inter has had the best squad, player by player for both years under Inzaghi and they failed to win the title.”

      True. Faaaar superior squad yet only 2p more than Milan. And no scudetto last year either.

  3. Regardless of how the season finishes I’ve seen enough of Pioli to realize we’ve seen the limits of his talents. Everyone talking about the UCL is delusional to think that Milan won based on Pioli’s influence. Conte is trying to force his exit from Tottenham. It’s a lucky draw and nothing more.

    1. Congratulations, so you are telling us that Conte lost on purpose because he wants to force an exit from Tottenham? Conte is a loser in Europe take it or leave it. Besides, Conte can’t work with Milan as we are, he works with established stars not children. Pioli is doing great, give him the credit he deserves

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