Arrigo Sacchi believes that AC Milan are right to keep their faith in Stefano Pioli, especially because the mistakes of the summer transfer window are now being exposed.
Milan are going through a very rocky patch at the moment having lost three of their last four games. The defeat to Juventus was a blow, as was the one against Paris Saint-Germain, but it is Saturday night’s result which has sparked a lot of discussion.
Udinese arrived at San Siro having not won a game all season so far, and yet they emerged with their first victory in 11 games thanks to Roberto Pereyra’s penalty with the Rossoneri flat for all 90 minutes.
This has seen the calls for Pioli to lose his job grow in momentum, but Sacchi believes that the coach is not entirely at fault and rather he is having to deal with an incomplete squad, as he spoke to La Gazzetta dello Sport.
Sacchi, is keeping Pioli correct?
“I would say yes. Is there anyone who thinks that Pioli is to blame? I hope not. I believe that the most serious mistake is upstream, the problems arise from there.”
And what is the mistake?
“Having bought too many foreigners. Those who come from abroad take time to understand our league, the game, the methodologies. These guys seem confused and the result is that Milan is not always a team.”
What are the biggest difficulties in a similar situation?
“Everything becomes difficult, even communicating with the players because we don’t speak the same language. But was there really a need to change so much? Milan, spending very little, had won a Scudetto and had reached the semi-final of the Champions League: undergoing a revolution it means having rejected the previous management”.
The fans are disappointed and understandably furious…
“I found the crowd’s boos on Saturday fair. Very bad performance. The fact is that now there is little time to get into the heads of the players and convince them that we must become a collective.”
What should Pioli do?
“I don’t dare give him advice, he’ll know what to do. I can tell you what I did.”
And that is?
“I was labeled as Mr. Nobody who arrived at Milan. And in fact I was a Mr. Nobody. But Mr. Nobody didn’t want presumptuous, individualistic, lazy, greedy, unprofessional players. The coaches, today, should make the their voice heard during the transfer campaign.
“Before buying Rjikaard I sent one of my trusted men to follow him for two weeks: when he returned I even asked him what he ate, what his habits were off the pitch. You have to choose the people before the players, do you want to understand him?”
However, the club remain close to the coach…
“And this is positive because it allows Pioli to have the necessary authority when managing a group. In my first year at Milan I had some difficulties. Berlusconi came to Milanello and said: ‘Good morning. I have the utmost confidence in Arrigo. will follow him, he will stay next year too. Whoever doesn’t follow him will go away. Good morning’.
“Twenty-seven seconds of speech, and from that moment we began the great ride. The strength of the club is fundamental to achieving great goals.”
Don Silvio understands leadership and human psychology. That speech alone made superstar players become human beings again.
He is very riggt when he says the club should not have bought too many foreigners, Milan should have a very strong Italian core.
But in regards to Pioli he is wrong, Pioli is simply too timid, weak,limited in his coaching, his short of ideas, lacks the courage to be innovative, quickly gives up on players, and lacks the courage to involve young players, we have very good young players in the squad the youth team and out on loan,how is it possible that all of them are not performing well, just look at the players he has discarded, we need a young coach who is not afraid to use young players, we have a good and young generation of players right now out on loan, and in the youth teams, if Pioli should continue, we will lose them all, we need a Spanish , Portuguese or Dutch coach who is not afraid to use young players, and who will improve the overall play and creativity of the team.
Us many, what very good young players would you like to see get playing time?
Romero and Pellegrino against Napoli showed that we absolutely do NOT have young talent on the bench. On loan? I can’t think of a single one who would have a stab at the starting 11.
Bartesaghi has not shown that he should be preferred to Florenzi, even out of position. We have a young squad, I was incredibly surprised when we won so many games to open the season.
A 3rd-5th finish is where I placed them before the season started, hopefully 4th and CL qualified, but second and first seems to belong to Juvez who have no European matches, and Inter, who have solid core and an amazing match-winner in Lautaro.
No amount of Chelsea and Arsenal rejects could possible see us compete with that.
We were blinded by a lucky start – Now that we’ve played 5-6 of the top teams, we’re looking pretty kuch where we should expect to be.
Redbird will hopefully sell the club soon enough.
Pioli is the one who wanted the foreigners. Pioli is the one who kept Krunic, his pet.
Ikr, he insisted to play together with Lord Krunic bc is one of the greatest player for his team. But now here we are.
Can you imagine the silly excuse they gave that they want Milan to be more European? Milan is 7-time European champions and they did with a core of Italians. This is not to discountenance the contributions of the many legendary foreigners, but there was always a proper balance.
Pioli sanctioned the signings. Except someone is lying. He praised management for giving him what he wants.
He shipped out Gabbia and brought in Pellegrino. Shipped out Origi for Jovic – what’s the difference? There’s even a possibility that Origi after a year would have been better, at least.
True, no one is to blame except Pioli. Except Musah everyone joined Milan before 6weeks atleast.
Pioli’s priority is not good, not getting good cdm than 3 attacking mf.
Not a fan of Pioli, but he is not in charge of scouting here. He didn’t ask specifically for Pellegrino or Jovic. He probably asked for midfielders, especially since they sold his best one in Tonali, and forwards.
What they gave him is a joke. Is the team really better now? Pulisic was hired to sell jerseys in the US market, he’s good but struggled against top clubs. Romero, Jovic, Okafor are useless. Reijnders and Musah have potential but we’ll have to wait, like we already did with Leao, Théo, Kessié, Tonali back in the days. Loftus-Cheek and Chukwueze are injury prone.
“Milan, spending very little, had won a Scudetto and had reached the semi-final of the Champions League: undergoing a revolution it means having rejected the previous management.”
This is the key. The funny thing is that, the key figure on the previous chapter of Milan is still here.
Additionally to buying only foreginers, this as well:
“Milan, spending very little, had won a Scudetto and had reached the semi-final of the Champions League: undergoing a revolution it means having rejected the previous management.”
Something some of us here already pinpointed in June but were massacred by hyped up revolving door fans who only saw flashy spending.
So about our midfield. It was the area where we signed most players but still is our weakest link in the team. We saw this in the preseason too our midfielders were getting toyed by Barca academy graduates. My issue here is if these signings were made with consideration to Pioli or if he had any say in what players he wanted. We should have gone for players with serie a experience rather than players who have never played in the league.
@Ted…that… exactly THAT. Worse yet if you disagreed you’re a hater.. clearly all these signings was the best thing since sliced bread smh 🤦♂️
Man this is beyond funny. Those hyped fans said this summer that Pioli couldn’t work last season because the team was not good enough, because of the previous management. We said that Pioli would be the next scapegoat after what was obviously an erratic mercato. Now they’re asking for Pioli to get fired haha
Well said
When we were wining nobody criticised they are foreign.
Funny how that works, right?
The only game they won convincingly was against Torino. Rest was rubbish.
That is true. Still, milan has been less Italian since late berlo days. Only Italian worth mentioning we signed in the last 5 years is tonali.
And the only reason he came was because he is a milan fan
Do Sacchi think Pioli has no say in what players he want? These players are signed because Pioli wanted them, no reason to criticize the management. I remember just a few days ago he was praising loftus cheek and Pulisic lmao.
To be fair, the team seem to be flying by the seat of their pants. Sprinkling of magic here and there from Pulisic, Leao, Giroud, etc. There has not been a proper game plan or tactical identity.
Many people hoped that it was just a gelling issue and that as time progresses, those rough edges would be ironed out. But it’s apparent that Pioli can’t get beyond a certain point with the team.
Bro I did. I was the first to point out that apart from the first two games Reinjders form was declining (this was waaay before we’re starting to discover him being “tired” now). I also was the first to point out that we had only played teams in the bottom half of the table (and that included the Roma game – they had bottom half form) and we were yet to see how good we were against top teams and then Inter happened.
PS. it’s easy to criticize the foreign players, we are after all almost all foreign.
This sacchi is happy with what is going on here at milan
Yup, he is on inter’s side.
You like it or not Pioli is our biggest problem that is all, and here sacchi saying rubbish
Now u support Pioli?
I thought Maldini was sacked because he was making transfer decisions alone without the consent of the coach, now the coach is the one who directly requested for each individual player that was acquired still nothing changes.
A$$ h○le$
Grow up.
There’s no way Arrigo Sacchi or anyone who has been a coach would call for another coach to be sacked. He has stated his opinion previously, from the sacking of Maldini to the signing of many foreigners. Read between the lines.
“But was there really a need to change so much? Milan, spending very little, had won a Scudetto and had reached the semi-final of the Champions League: undergoing a revolution it means having rejected the previous management.”
Exactly! What happened with Maldini and Massara was a huge red flag. The sale of Tonali was another red flag even though financially justifiable. Worst of all for me though, was the hole they created in midfield. 60 million, more than enough for Luis Alberto and Amrabaat, spent on three unproven identical players. Pulisic has proven to be a good signing and I think Chukwueze and Okafor will improve, but man what a miss Scamacca is turning out to be. It’s all up to Pioli now until January.
This time i quite agreed with Sacchi.
Instead of keeping Gabbia and used Colombo as Giroud backup, Moncada and Furlani sent them out on loan and brought Jovic, Pellegrino, and Romero with the last two names doesn’t have experience playing on first team in top Europa League. It shows every time Romero on the field, he looks confused as fvck like a headless chicken. The same can be said for Pellegrino who made amateur mistake and cost us 2 points against Napoli. Heck, for RW, i dare to say Saelemakers and Messias looks like a fkin maestro compare to Romero and Chuk. Meanwhile Jovic just like Mandzukic and Origi: both are useless addition that forced Pioli to keeps playing Giroud.
And then Tonali sale, who was one of the pillar that help Milan won scudetto and reach CL semi-final. That season Tonali made crucial goals and assist and last season he still made 2 goals and 7 assist. But Moncada and Furlani doesn’t brought a proper replacement. So far Reijnders and RLC are not the same type of player like Tonali and both are lacking goals and assist too.
I just don’t understand why Moncada and Furlani thinks it’s best to reboot the team again when they only needs to bring 3-4 good quality players.
The only purchased that are right so far are Pullisic and Okafor, which was Maldini and Masara targets from last season.
Pioli of course made some mistakes with his decisions. But like Sacchi said, we can’t really blame him when the one above Pioli is the one who made the biggest mistakes.
Oh yeah and of course losing legendary figures like Maldini is a big blow too. Maldini was one of the few upper ups who keeps monitoring every day training and matches as well as gave moral boost for Pioli and the players.
Are you really saying the Tonali sale was bad?
No. I’m saying Tonali sale is bad because they didn’t used that money to buy the same type of player and quality like him. Tonali is a DM but Reijnders, Musah, and RLC are not.
Last season when Kessie left, we didn’t get a proper replacement for him. But luckily Tonali and Bennacer duo did a good job, although we got bad results when Bennacer underperfom and then got seriously injured in CL against Inter.
Now this season Bennacer are still injured and Tonali sold to Newcastle. The only MF Pioli can rely on for defensive part is Krunic but he’s not a DM either, hence why he looks not that good when defending. This is the reason why our defense line looks shaky every time our opponent attack because we don’t have a proper DM who can filter the attack.
Another reason why Leao and Theo plays bad too because there’s no DM between them that can hold and cover their space when they go up. But remember when there was Tonali, Bennacer, or Kessie who run around the field tirelessly covers Leao and Theo side when they go up? Milan defense looks like a solid wall unlike this season.
If in January Moncada didn’t try to get a proper DM, i don’t expect another good results. Heck, i have big doubts if we can win against PSG or even Lecce.
Poli insistence to use 1 striker is badly exposed. Giroud is only good for 60mins. Get real! We need to develop a twin strike pair.
I don’t know why but this is hilarious to me. “Milan, spending very little, had won a Scudetto and had reached the semi-final of the Champions League: undergoing a revolution it means having rejected the previous management”.” Did we not say these things before the best summer campaign in a decade? Everyone was so happy with the summer transfers, I barely see them..where are u guys? Lol 😂
Right here saying the same thing. Good players (except jovic), bad coach, worse fans
I think most of the summer signings are very good players who are exhausted and/or injured. While they were fresh and healthy, they performed well, for the most part. At this time I blame Pioli more than the players. Insisting with Krunic and Jovic and suddenly changing formation were bad moves.
Sacchi hasn’t been watching the national team…
I fear Italians don’t understand calcio anymore.
A league that can not win anything in Europe