CM: Pioli accused of ‘surrender’ in Inter loss – ‘The players no longer follow him’

By Oliver Fisher -

AC Milan head coach Stefano Pioli has been accused of losing the attention of his players after the defeat against Inter in the derby last night.

Daniele Longo’s piece for Calciomercato.com describes Pioli as the ‘great loser of the Milan derby’ because ‘the players no longer follow him’ and the head coach had already decided with his line-up that the ‘first major objective had to be to avoid a goal conceded’.

Instead of trying to persist with an identity that won him the Scudetto last season Pioli totally surrendered his principles and instead just hoped to be able to stop the opponents, which is ‘an unacceptable attitude for a team that must proudly defend the tricolor sewn on their chest’.

It is obvious that there will be some defeats in high-level games against other good teams, but to ‘accept surrender without a fight’ is wrong.

Longo goes on to add that Leão starting from the bench for the second straight game cannot have a technical explanation because the Portuguese winger proved to be the only one able to affect the game with his qualities.

The feeling is that Pioli is also ‘experiencing a difficult moment in the management of his group’, which is shown the the ‘lack of desire to fight of some leaders such as Theo Hernandez’. A turning point must come now, or a definitive goodbye to the Champions League places will follow.

Tags AC Milan

11 Comments

  1. Player body language says it all. They look defeated before they even start the game. Saying that they lost the spark is an understatement, because they haven’t had it since the start of the season. There were a few glimpses of the last season team in a game or two, but the rest we were constantly struggling, and relying on a player or two to have a good day.

    Now sadly it has reached its culmination and it is becoming painfully obvious that Pioli has indeed lost the locker room. If he has the strength, know-how and the authority left to take it back, remains to be seen. But the way things are looking, we are heading to Europa League if we’re lucky and we will probably have to say goodbye to Pioli and possible a few players that are above EL paygrade and we can no longer afford them.

    1. “Saying that they lost the spark is an understatement, because they haven’t had it since the start of the season.” Lol, WTF are you talking about? After 16 rounds we had a record of 11-3-2 and were 5 points behind a Napoli that is having a historic season? It’s obvious that something broke after the Roma game (Round 17). You, like so many others, talk as if we’ve been mid-table all season.

    2. @Vero Rossonero

      Something broke from day one of this season. Almost every victory was hard won. We only showed glimpses of our former selves vs Salzburg and Zagreb.

      Roma was just culmination. This kind of downfall doesn’t happen overnight. It’s been long time coming. The fact that most missed it, doesn’t mean it wasnt happening, it just means they weren’t paying attention.

      I get it, while everyone was looking at this team through rose colored glasses of last years scudetto, team was falling apart in front of their eyes. We being 2nd in a league where someone like Napoli can dominate clearly means nothing, because we were put in our place by a midtable PL club that lost its manager a few weeks before they demolished us.

      I don’t even want to imagine what Kane and Son will do to us.

      Bottom line, our decline was slow and steady (but visible) from day one, most just chose to ignore it, until Roma made us look like a Serie D club. After that, there was no denying it anymore, we are a Serie D club atm.

      1. How did Roma make us look like a Serie D club when we literally dominated the game for 85 minutes. Did you watch it? Because that’s what happened. Just saying.

      2. Absolutely @shiva, some has been saying that the squad got weaker since the beginning of the season, and when they criticized management for their poor work over the last 2 windows, people were attacking them. They were saying ” we are on the same pace as last season “, “we are only 3, only 6, only 8 points behind, just like last season when we won the title”.
        Well, now we are 18 points behind Napoli and risking being out of UCL next year. And thankfully, Juventus got docked points, because we’d be risking being out of Europe if they didn’t lose 15 points.
        Change needs to happen ASAP, starting with the coach. I don’t care even if you just put Bonera as a replacement, but Pioli needs to go. He has lost the team, and they need a new voice in the locker room.
        By the end of the season, M&M needs to be replaced by someone who is competent to hold and perform the job of a sporting director. Being an all time great footballer doesn’t make you competent for that job

        1. Could not agree more with @shiva and @Pioli. We were fortunate to win last season let’s be honest. We needed a large investment in The squad with ready made starters (as Maldini originally said back in May) considering we lost Kessie and other veterans – that didn’t happen. Yes we spent 50M – but that was on speculative young players – none that can give you any guarantees. So here we are. It was inevitable especially with the condensed schedule due to the WC. Yes we were still second place but something seemed off, the lads were Holding on as best they could. Now the wheels have come off the cart. Yes mistakes were made by Pioli for failing to trust the young kids as he’d done so so well in the past – now it seems he’s lost the team unsure of himself or the systems/tactics he spent years instilling in the team. Messias as a mid; Calabria as a wing back? These are choices of a man who has lost his identity. Who is to blame. Everyone. Ownership, M&M, Pioli. I would say get used to it. This club is still owned by Elliot not Redbird. Elliot are concerned about being profitable not necessarily about winning. Ya we won last year but let’s be honest nobody expected it – not us fans nor Elliot and that is reflected in the lack of investment in quality ready made players this summer and winter. Elliot want us to be Atlanta. Profitable each year but don’t win anything. They are fine with that. Makes their shareholders happy. Redbird have no power to dictate any moves to Elliot. They owe them 600M @7% interest and Elliot are a 30% owner. This is it. Maldini basically said as much when he towed the company line last week and did a complete 360 from his comments in May. So be prepared for it to get worse. When we miss out on CL – Elliot will have the perfect excuse of why they need to sell players and not spend $$. Or players will simply request to leave without CL – Theo, Leao, Kalulu, Tonali, etc…? Project gets set back years lose CL money and we are back to where we started. Young players, wage caps, small investments, etc… and the cycle repeats itself. Like I said – Atalanta. And does anyone really think if we sell our stars for big $$ Elliot will reinvest all that $$ into player purchases and wage increases???? LMAO. Keep dreaming boys. Stadium? Sure….in 2056. Cheers

  2. I agree, all changed after Roma’s game, but in my opinion, the team started to perform on his level, but they lost the spark that pushed them beyond their limits. They realized that after Kessie they have no leader on the pitch. Ibra is missing. So to be honest, this is a team that has potential, but whether will it achieve it is another story (not with Pioli), and above this is an average team in bellow average league.

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