Stefano Pioli has once again ended up in the dock after his decision to field an entirely rotated starting line-up barring Mike Maignan resulted in more dropped points against Bologna.
If Milan do not finish in the top four at the end of the season, it will be due – at least in part – to Pioli’s choices. That may sound like an obvious statement, but it is far from it. The ups and downs in the league had a very precise and much more classifiable distribution of blame compared to today, it could be said.
Firstly, the inadequate first two transfer windows (both in the summer and in January) under RedBird Capital deserve scrutiny. Then the players are to blame too, in particular the subdued performance of several Scudetto heroes such as Fikayo Tomori, Pierre Kalulu, Rafael Leao, Ismael Bennacer and Theo Hernandez.
In the eyes of some, that meant that Pioli’s methods and his work are last in terms of the portion of blame taken up in this hypothetical trial.
Things have changed
After today, however, things are quite different. Eight months on from the start of the season, the performance of the strongest players present in the squad has definitely grown and even the ‘wounds’ linked to the subdued transfer market should have been cauterised by time and the experience of the new arrivals. Alas, this is not the case.
In the eyes of Pioli, the reserve options don’t really exist except in cases like Empoli and Bologna today, or when the owners – squeezed to capacity in all the other matches – have to catch their breath before the big match on the most important stage.
This is testified by the minutes played by certain players this season. Florenzi, Thiaw and Ballo-Touré together (1506′) barely reach half of the minutes spent on the pitch by Theo Hernandez alone (3001′).
It is even more serious in midfield. When adding together the minutes played by Vranckx and Pobega so far this season (1037′), you get just one third of Tonali’s playing time (3106′). In attack Rebic and Origi do not even come close to the minutes played by Giroud (2491′).
It is data that underline how the reserves at Milan do not have – as should happen – playing time spread over the course of the season. Instead, they act as literal substitutes only on occasions such as games against Empoli and Bologna, i.e. ‘buffer’ games before bigger matches.
In this sense Pioli enters into contradiction with himself. ‘We do not underestimate anyone’ is a cliché said by almost all the coaches around the world, and yet the team fielded at the Stadio Renato Dall’Ara today was without even minimum consistency.
A game thrown away
Milan not only underestimated Bologna but, as happened with Empoli, overestimated themselves. This is because fourth place – decidedly more feasible than a final victory in the Champions League – is not a secondary goal but the only one left.
Ten changes were made. Every single outfield player did not start the game against Napoli in midweek, and many have them have not started more than a handful of games all season.
This is not rationalised rotation: it is a pre-announced surrender. Fourth place is worth as much (if not more) than Napoli-Milan, yet
Pioli’s mistake was to trust in the second lines when he has demonstrated over the course of a whole season through his administration of minutes and appearances that they are not trusted.
What happened today in Bologna is instead a force dictated by fear: playing with players who are now ‘lost’ can only bring you closer to defeat. The performance might not have been terrible yet falling behind inside the first minute made the game uphill and it was due to a lack of attention.
Now fourth place – Milan’s real and only goal this season – is an open battle with three other clubs which have had the ability to build a group made up of 22 players and not just 11.
