Following the heavy defeat against Paris Saint-Germain, Stefano Pioli spoke to the media about AC Milan’s chances in the Champions League and where to go from here. He admitted that they could have done a lot of things better.
The Rossoneri were outplayed by the French side this evening and barely created any chances, once again not finding the back of the net in the Champions League. As a result, they are currently last in the group, two points behind Dortmund and Newcastle.
Speaking to Prime after the game, as cited by MilanNews, Pioli shared his thoughts on the poor performance and what went wrong. He admitted that there is some concern after losing two games on the trot.
On the game…
“It’s a significant result. I think we did everything we had to do, but from a technical point of view, we should have played a better match. They did better technically than us, taking advantage of the opportunities. In the first half, we recovered a lot of balls, in the second we lost too many balls and conceded a bad second goal.”
On Pulisic’s miss…
“I didn’t speak to Pulisic, maybe he didn’t realize that his man was far away… They also brought pressure on us, it wasn’t easy to play cleanly. They punished us at the right moments of the match, we can play games better.”
Are you concerned?
“There’s always concern when you lose two games in a row. I’ve seen things we can do better, so we have to try to raise our level. It’s not over, but we have to run by throwing ourselves back into the league first and foremost and thinking about Napoli.”
Was there a mental decline after the 60th minute?
“For 60 minutes we put in a great performance, we even played better than PSG at times. Then we dropped. It’s disappointing because it was an important match. I can’t blame my players for anything in terms of attitude, they did what we had prepared, but they were technically better than us.”
Milan are still alive in the group but certainly need to come away with three points from the return leg against PSG, scheduled for November 7th. They will be hoping that the support of a rocking San Siro can get them to glory.
Just stop with the ‘we play better for xx minutes’ kind of s**t. You need to play better the WHOLE match. That’s the point.
Agree..very annoying with his words.
He will never learn or admit his continuous mistakes
Sick man pioliout.
This dumb head is making things complicated to my Milan,he has lost it.
Milan didn’t play better, we can’t make a chance, but Milan did have strong contact in the game. There is huge Lack of quality, self confidence and experience in Milan team.
Pioli is trying to secure these players’ acceptance. These players are NOT the types of Milan players of the past. Musah got it right, these players lack personality. This was blatant, and Pioli is only trying to play diplomacy ans stating the politically correct words. Look at Reijnders’ lack of effort in one goal! Look at Calabria’ s body language when the PSG player flew by him! Look at how all the Milan players let the 2nd goal in. This is disappointing. I dont see any future in this bunch.
Wow that defeat was aweful !Pioli should stop making excuses.We need a quality proven manager !
#Maldiniwasright
Maldini’s “proven” manager was Andrea Pirlo, so I am not sure Maldini was super right there…
Only reason Pioli still there is because he is a yes man. Incompetent management likes this kind of employee
YES YES Pioli should have left the club with Maldini and Massara but he survived to show us he is below the level needed at Milan
Now we need DE ZERBI as manager !
For this man to still claim his team played better I’m afraid this guy still thinks he is at Florentina, Lazio or those his hire and fire contract and team he used to manage? This mentality of a looser that yet pervade you is why you will keep Milan in the more of failure unless urgent step is taken
What portion of the match huh?
Sadly, the game is played for 90+ minutes and for goals.
He’s now completely lost his mind. They did not play better than PSG. We are lucky it wasn’t 5-0. #Pioli out
Delusional, wow
Exactly what I was going to say. He just makes a fool of himself saying this because noone believes him and he will only keep losing trust if he can’t own up to mistakes.
It wasn’t our worst game of course. The juve-game was worse imo. But our attack is in shambles. And it starts in midfield. Krunic is not good enough. We should keep playing Adli and letting him get more and more experience. And shove Krunic out the door in january.
Fire this ldiot.
I could not say it better
“For 60 minutes we put in a great performance, we even played better than PSG at times.” -says peeoli. Wonder what game he was watching.
And that idiot has the guts to speak after the match? Pioli out!
I think Pioli was on another parallel world during the match.
Pioli we saw was only his hologram.
I wonder if the management felt entertained with this stand up coachmedian..
This stupid guy is delusional and potentially two defeats away from the chop
Want to see him out asap, even if losing the next three or four games is what it takes to get him out. Such a loser who never learns from his mistakes and failures. Would ruin this promising team if he stays.
Like he would come out and say he f*cked up and got it all wrong? LMAO!!! Right………..
Just crash us out of Europe, Stefano. Secure the Top4 finish and if we get lucky, our management will realize that while domestically he’s ok, we’ll never go far with him in Europe.
how many games again ????
pioli out……
Pioli defends himself too much..hahaha Your job is to make Milan play better against anyone, there are no excuses in the squad, MILAN’s biggest problem is the COACH sector.
Maldini was 200%right
Those mf togather with all offices so f looser
For someone who would consistently start krunic I am not surprised by Stefano krunichs statement.
I remember one time we were linked with harry mcguire. Well we have two
Pioli is making Milan a meme
Just proves how delusional he is….
Pioli also called out Calabria – who gave an honest assessment of our performance:
“When he spoke to Mediaset Infinity after the defeat, Calabria was visibly angry at the performance and saw things in a very different way to his coach.
“We knew that this group would go all the way to the end. We are here. Every day we go to Milanello and work our a**es off so that we can play these games.
“If we want to keep going in the Champions League, and we do, then we must roll our sleeves up. Anyone who doesn’t believe should just stay at home.”
When these comments were passed on to Pioli, the coach was not at all content with the approach his captain had taken.
“He was wrong to say that. There is nobody who works at Milanello without the right focus or intensity. It can happen in the heat of the moment after a match to say things you don’t mean.
“What we prepared during the week is what we showed today, it was just that we lacked quality in certain moments, misplacing some crucial passes.”
Like I said – Pioli is delusional
Pioli on new Crack. For sure
I never thought that pioli is so stupid and say that milan played well … must be mad and high …..
Milan’s problem is mental, they have stopped believing in their own abilities against bigger opposition. Pulisic missed opportunity a classic example. They freeze, they stop trying, they stop believing… and when they are under pressure nothing works. Our attack is one dimensional, we still rely heavily on Giroud, Leao to make things happen… and the misplaced passess, poor positioning and support play are just amateurish…and for that the coach needs to take blame because these issues are quite evident for all to see. If a team keeps losing like this it will have a psychological impact on them and it will become too steep a task to get out of it. We need a team that can start believing, not new players ( with the exception of a decent striker)
Wat ever ur name is ur time in Milan is over due.. just resign pls.. u lack knowledge of ac Milan football.. maldini was right to kick u out.
Pioli thinks possession means playing better, forgetting that who scores more is the better team.
I have never seen Milan in the last 30 years unable to score from set balls (corners and fouls) its like the scoring percentage 1 every 300 setball.
Maldini is right to sack Pioli, he is uncapable or beating any strong team. Let alone that these young players are not growing with him. On the opposite, players like Kalulu, Thiaw, etc. are getting worse.
I think the way to move forward, bring Maldini back and Pioli out.
Both the coach, management and players are to blame for this defeat, Pioli simply lacks the confidence or strategy to improve our game plan, he does not give players confidence, you can see from their faces, they are not happy, he is also completely out of ideas, my main problem I have with him, is his attitude of discarding good players, just look at the list, even last season’s buys should have performed better, but as usual he did not trust them and give them confidence, he is finished.
The management too are also to blame, how can you build a Milan team, with Italians, last season their are certain Italian players that performed well, but yet the management refused to buy them, Orsolini performed well, instead of us to get him, we went and bought Chukweze for a lot of money, and honestly he will fail,look at the defence, why do you still keep Florenzi and Kjear who are slow, injury prone and a waste of money…?
The players too need to start performing and we honestly need a new coach, and we should try and get Italians into the team, having too many foreigners in a club is not good, most of them lack a sense of belonging, and they need home based players to guide them.
I am fed up with a lot of you moaning groaning fans .
Yes I am …We were beaten by a better team …
The problem as far as I can see is a midfield that cannot create anything ..Aldi came on and at least he could pass the ball …We had many corners ,,but delivery very poor …could not blame Giroud in anyway for the loss ,,,he tried very hard and got into some good scoring positions but delivery to him was poor ..Rafeo leao what was he doing he got into some good positions but rather than pass the ball ⚽️ over does things .pulisic ..I do like him ,but of course he had a simple scoring chance ,but missed .
Now to the good part ..I have complete confidence in pioli …I believe we will win the scuddeto,,as I have from the beginning of the season …so let’s concentrate on that ..That would still be a huge success…
We were beaten by a better team, you are right about that, things are getting worrying though. It’s far too early to call for Pioli’s head but he needs a plan B and C or I’m sorry but we’re not winning anything.
Lazio, a whole month ago, was the last time we looked anything close to good, and they are a shambles at the moment. The way we line up currently, if you have enough structure to subdue our limited attacking movement, and can move the ball quick enough to exploit our issue transitioning to defence, you’ll cause us massive problems.
We need RLC to get and stay fit. I think we also need to persist with Chuk on the right once he’s back; he’s more of a problem for defenders than Pulisic and we need to start pulling the opposition about a bit to break them down.
Also I can’t agree with you on Adli. He’s more effective than Krunic but still not nearly good enough. He’s a terrier off the ball but completely f**king useless on it.
Hats to break this to you, but prepare for 4th place and crashing out of the group stage of the UCL.
Pioli is a mediocre at best and Maldini knew this. Maldini, even with his mistakes had a winners mind and mentality.
While we can’t go back, hopefully the top leadership sees Pioli has maxed out and decides to replace him sooner rather than later.
I want to see us have UCL glory again.
Pioli is just not good at playing against big clubs outside Italy. He gets scared and transmits it to the whole team. He is scared of big clubs. Period!
Is it ok to sack Pioli now or we should wait for another defeat ?
Sack this sick man. He make me sick when we lose 5-1 to inter