Paolo Scaroni has outlined the differences between Elliott Management and RedBird Capital as AC Milan’s owners, while he also responded to a question on Stefano Pioli’s future.
The future of Pioli is a divisive issue inside the fanbase at the moment with some believing that he has plenty of credit in the bank after the Scudetto win and reaching the Champions League semi-finals, but others think the peak might have already been reached and the risk is a very sharp decline.
Scaroni spoke at the Milan Football Week event put on by La Gazzetta dello Sport this afternoon and he was asked for his thoughts on the job Pioli has done and what his future might be, with his comments relayed by MilanNews.
“The results with the Scudetto speak for themselves. I am a great admirer of Pioli, Maldini and Massara because they embody the Milan style which means: we don’t complain, we don’t protest, we behave like gentlemen by following the rules,” he said.
“We behave like this and our fans behave like this. It’s a world of people like that. Pioli, Maldini, Malssara, Gazidis, Furlani are gentlemen. Good people, well educated, there isn’t that climate that I see from time to time in other stadiums and that doesn’t belong to our style.
“Pioli makes no excuses. We are hit by injuries in unexpected ways, like Florenzi, Kjaer, poor Bennacer… we’ve had many. Not complaining seems to me a test of our style.
“Will he stay? He has a contract until 2025. These are technical decisions that I don’t make but a priori [as a theoretical deduction] I don’t see any problems.”
Scaroni also explained why Gerry Cardinale – the number one of RedBird Capital and owner of Milan – is a good man to take the club forward because of his sporting expertise.
“He has a small group of people who are bearers of skills and experience that we do not have. Elliott were a financial investor who then trusted Gazidis, today we find ourselves an investor with sports skills. For the stadium we have a gentleman brought by Cardinale who built 40 stadiums around the world. I feel very reassured.”
Well put me in charge if that’s all that it takes. I can behave like that, no problem.
You’re not behaving like one now.
Rest assured Milan will miss CL next season if something does not change
That will be disastrous to replenishing the squad and attracting special player to the club
I strongly believe that the manager should change and fresh new IDEAS and ATTITUDE and TACTICAL play be introduced
DE ZERBI could be the one to bring Milan to the next stages of Glory we as dye hard supports expect of the ROSSO NERI
Lmao it’s funny to see some people overhyped De Zerbi as if he’s some kind of genius who won EPL with Brighton.
Ultimately, the squad lacks attacking quality and this has been exposed by the number of games (and reality that it’s been 2 full seasons of a heavy workload). The bubble has burst.
Senza Leao, the attacking part of the squad could fall as low as 15th in the Serie A. I am not exaggerating.
With Leao, on the current standings, the attack is better than Monza, Bologna and Fiorentina. It is arguably only the equal of Udinese with Delofeu. Udinese has more dangerous options in its squad.
No side can go back to the well 50 times a year with the same team, that’s assuming injury doesn’t stop it from happening (and we haven’t had that luxury).
It leaves one staring at the most obvious answer, doesn’t it? If Leao is not starting against these small teams and we can’t score with any fluency against these smalls teams, the attacking squad is no better than the sides it is playing against. If it was any better, why can’t it score?
Pioli is now under real pressure because the actual sin he has committed against Inter in SF leg 1, as opposed to the countless sins imagined by Milan fans, was really horrendous. Not reverting to a 3-5-2 and bottling that game up, to play for a draw without Leao, happened on a big enough stage to possibly cost him his job. He shouldn’t be under this pressure.
The disturbing part of the entire scenario is that we seem intent on backing CDK and Diaz as part of the solution. There is no precedent for CDK turning it around next season, not based on any current Milan player. I’ve gone through that in detail and can link sceptics. Diaz is 3 seasons in and still not someone we can rely on. He needs space and time and simply isn’t physical enough for the Serie A. He should go to Spain because he would be extremely well suited to that league.
Then I look at the players we are trying to bring in. Arnautovic is a guy we bring in to cover Giroud against a side like Spezia because our actual scudetto standard number 9 needs a rest.
I’m continually ready about links to players who will blow up the whole budget when we need 4 starters, now that Bennacer will likely miss much of the start of next season (CM, AM, RW and #9).
I think we need to start sorting out some very generous loan terms, with obligations to buy, for Scamacca and Zaniolo. Spread the cost over 2 seasons which would result in paying something closed to actual worth as opposed to the bargain basement price their respective situations have created (typing this in May 2023). We can’t even buy into the game we are trying to play at the moment.
I’d look at a similar thing with a few at Chelsea.
Milinkovic-Savic would be great. But 40m Euros blows up the whole budget and we’re still without RW and #9 of the standard that addresses the issues the squad currently faces.
So you just want teams to give us transfers that are advantageous to us only? Lol 😂
Like West Ham is just goi g to give us Scamacca and gala going to giving us zanioll so we can spread our cost and then to do well with us
I am proposing the opposite. Transfers for the players which are ultimately worth more than current value.
I’ll base it on West Ham paying 35m for Scamacca (it was about that sum). They don’t play him and he has fallen out with Moyes and he wants out of England. The numbers underpinning West Ham’s season, at least as I have heard reported, are quite good. XG is good, they’re controlling games quite well but have failed to finish and been a bit leaky defensively which explains their position on the table. They’re not Chelsea, for example, for which virtually nothing about their game makes sense. So Moyes is likely to continue. They’re also finishing the season well.
What is Scamacca currently worth? Could it be much more than 20m? What I am proposing is a hefty loan fee plus an obligation to buy that would end up something like 40m in total. It would be something like 20m now and 20m on transfer.
They do it because they’re not otherwise getting their money back for a player they don’t like. Antonio is their number 9 and it is a very long way back to getting anything like 40m Euros for Scamaccca (doing it from the bench).
My justification for the ultimate spend is that on return to Italy and with a bit of TLC he’ll score at least the 16 league goals he scored last season at which point we are paying a total value justified by the performances of the player. We need those goals to get into the top 4 in a Serie A that will be even more competitive next season.
We’re not getting >16 league goals for less than 30m euros. In reality a ‘guarantee’ would probably cost 40m or more. Beto, for example, would cost about 30m. Look at his actual record. I like him but his record is average at best. WEe’re otherwise looking players based in France whose market value is inversely proportionate to the value of goals in France relative to goals in Italy.
I am less confident Galatasary would agree because I’ve heard nothing to suggest Zaniolo has burned all his bridges. If we could get away with it, we’d spend 20m now instead of something north of 40m for SMS at Lazio. There is then money left over to spend on a CM or RW.
“If we could get away with it, we’d spend 20m now instead of something north of 40m for SMS at Lazio. ”
SMS will score ~10 goals and provide ~10 assists per season. Zaniolo on the other hand scores 1 and assists 1. That’s the biggest difference.
That’s missing the point and taking a position based on a caricature of Zaniolo.
Sign SMS and we don’t have the money to sign anyone else of real substance in the upcoming mercato.
That’s needing a minimum of 3 starting 11 players. You sign SMS and have to live with Messias and Salemakers on the right wing. Giroud starts as the number 9 with back up from Arnautovic.
Does that feel like we’re making a real and sustainable leap forward?
“Sign SMS and we don’t have the money to sign anyone else of real substance in the upcoming mercato.”
Depends on the deal. If you pay in parts, then it’s not taking away too much of this summer’s mercato funds.
I’d rather make a safe bet with more money on SMS who delivers for sure than a bit less money on Zaniolo who will be a flop.
“We behave like this and our fans behave like this. It’s a world of people like that. Pioli, Maldini, Malssara, Gazidis, Furlani are gentlemen. Good people, well educated, there isn’t that climate that I see from time to time in other stadiums and that doesn’t belong to our style.
“Pioli makes no excuses.’
Yep. Very much unlike the comments section here 🤣🤣🤣
The Pioli outters clearly lack the ability to discern.
We are 4th in the league for shots on target per game, 4th for shots taken, 4th for shots taken in the box per 90.
9th in goals on set pieces, after letting our two best at it Kessie and Chana go for nada. 15th in interceptions per game, 3rd in tackles per game. 5th in fouls, meaning we are carded among the most in the league. Say Kessie again? So for 5 million we saved by letting Him and Hakan walk on our wage budget, we gave up first place. With Ibra, healthy that could have been 10 goals up, ten more goals with 16 draws or one goal games, our season looks like a one for the books. Maybe a successful title defense.
We knew Ibra was out and Kessie, with Roma gone… So had they prioritized securing our targets, or given 2 more mill to Kessie, as a precondition to the sale like anyone with common sense would have, we could be looking back at Napoli now. Those are not Pioli, Maldini or Massara’s calls.
Goals for, we are 4th. Pass accuracy 8th, arial duels won 7th. 5th in saves per 90 minutes despite having Tata. 4th in Key passes. So the team is not performing badly relative to our competition and had Mike been healthy, we could easily be at 23 wins, those 10 draws cut in half with big saves from Maignan, converting 5 draws to wins. Comfortable in 2nd place.
5th in goals. 1st in total dribbles attempted per 90 mins. 1st in successful ones. 4th in unsuccessful. We simply are lacking the top scoring touch, something coaches don’t teach. 10th in successful crosses leading to assists, coaches can practice those all day, players that lack talent just cant get that precise play done with mid level talent. We lack wide players who can connect crosses. Have been for a long time. Wasn’t addressed in 3 years plus we weakened in the back and down the middle.
Which means, we lacked what we already possessed and let walk for nothing last summer.
If we kept Kessie, you can argue our possession stats, offensive and defensive numbers would be higher. Even if marginally, those 10 draws and 1 goal games, which total for 16, we could of won with Maignan too. We wouldn’t be far off 1st place. Lazio, Inter, Sassuolo, Torino, we know Maignan would have pulled 2 wins out of those instead of Tata. With Kessie we could have kept their midfielders and offensive players in check.
So all the Pioli out talk shows we have bird brains writing stuff on top and on the bottom if they can put these results on him.
In heated agreement with most of this.
It is not like Pioli has made no mistakes but he’s human. Pep makes mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes.
Large parts of the squad are rubbish. It’s a testament to Pioli that the results have been so good strong for the last 3 seasons (I’m counting UCL SF this season).
It’s not even Maldini and Massara who are at fault. The only error they really made was the price paid for CDK. Paying 20m for him would not change what happened on field this season. They were dead in the water without a budget, without contracts, at the same time that every target other than CDK had committed elsewhere.
We had just won a scudetto when ownership got involved in a sale which was poorly thought through and which had a massive effect on the mercato.
very well said
The ‘Pioli out’ talk shows that many Milan fans doesn’t have brains and choose the easy way: blame the coach every time Milan didn’t get good result.
But when Milan got good results like last season scudetto or Milan reach UCL semi like this season, some fans doesn’t want to give credit to Pioli.
It’s the reason why i personally don’t want to interact with a lot of Milan fans and have a logical discussion with them.
i agree with you
“We are 4th in the league for shots on target per game, 4th for shots taken, 4th for shots taken in the box per 90. ”
It’s the QUALITY, not the quantity that matters.
I definitely agree that with Kessie we’d be better off in points and Position in the table. I have zero doubts about that. But I dont think it’s was easy as a 5million difference. If I recall Kessie’s agent kept moving the goal post everytime we met his demands which went from 4.5 m per season to almost the cap at 7m. With Barca coming knocking we just simply couldn’t compete with their wage packet offers. His agent also got greedy and wanted a 20m commission. He was on a 4m contract with us before he left. He’s now on a 9m, 13m with bonuses at Barca. So it’s not 5m but more along the lines of 65m we saved (13-5 x5, +20) which is not small money. There was simply no way we were competing with other clubs in keeping him with the salary cap we have. But there is a quality-salary trade off
We are struggling with strikers.
Shame to say that Patrick Cutrone, 25y,
Born as Milan fan, Don’t have place with team.
Petagna plays for Monza another youth product.
I hope I don’t die of old age before the new stadium is built.
I keep shouting on this.. Appoint Mauro Tassotti as the coach of Milan next season