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.
