Stefano Pioli has come under heavy scrutiny in the last few weeks, but the manager has given himself some breathing room with the recent wins. Nevertheless, the manager has five points to prove himself, as a report claims.
It has been a tough start to the season for Milan, struggling with a plethora of injuries and a lack of optimism. After the 2-2 draw against Salernitana, Pioli was certainly on the brink but he managed to give himself some more time, beating Sassuolo and then Cagliari.
As Tuttosport highlights (via MilanNews), the manager’s contract will expire in 2025 but the feeling is that he will leave in the summer. That being said, Pioli will be keen on probing himself in the next five months, reaching the objectives set by the club.
In the league, Milan’s objective is to secure Champions League qualification and in the cups, the Rossoneri can dream. The draw in the Coppa Italia, a tournament they haven’t won in 21 years, is favourable and they have never lifted the Europa League trophy either.
Should Milan clinch at least one of these trophies – while also securing UCL qualification – Pioli will know that he gave everything he could. The final decision will then pass to the management, but the feeling is that a divorce is on the cards.
Meanwhile, the likes of Antonio Conte, Thiago Motta, Vincenzo Italiano and Francesco Farioli are lurking for the head coach role at Milan, as the report concludes.
Jesus just fire the baldy already. He proved himself enough
With the owners, and management like this, with not enough quality throughout the team, with no high salaries, that are the reason, why all quality players go elsewhere, with no money for transfers, and with injury ravaged team.. he leads the club to third place with still realistic chances for sccudeto.. still in Europe, and with less quality team then now, brought us sccudeto and semifinals of UCL.. You are all either kids that dont know shit, or ungrateful bastards. You are not real fans.
you make it sound like he is couching monza. this is milan, since he came the club invested 243M€! Results are expected and he has none in 2 years & we play like cr@p
How can you describe the Scudetto winning team as being lower quality when they, erm, won the Scudetto?
If actually winning is not your measure of quality, what is?
My point exactly.. @Maldini’sheir… winning the sccudeto with that squad is showing Pioli’s quality.. and we have better players now to be fair… No ibra and Tonali, but we got young talented players.. and who is to say that tonali wont come back 🙂
Elliott put the cap, not Maldini, he didn’t have a say in that… and this mobster if he had any love for the club, he would take that out.. and start bringing in top class players.. but he wont, because he is there for money, and if you can google how much a club spends on wages, that doesnt make you an expert. Also check out Feners, first team and B team and reserves, and then Milan’s.. you will see that Milan has twice if not three times bigger squad.. thats why Milan spends more .. and no, I’m not a kid, and i have been a AC Milan fan since i was a kid, since 87, when i was 6… And believe me i dont google shit.. like you
“You are not real fans.”
LOL. Here we have another kid who thinks he’s better than everyone else here. Here to make new friends, eh?
People want more because it’s Milan FFS. Not Inter whose trophy room is a f*ng closet. Playing for the 3rd spot isn’t what Milan fans want.
For now, with this squad… Pioli can’t do more.. a lot of injured players . If you want more, ask the owners for money. How Silvio did it? Thats why you have the closet full of trophies.. that is how its done.. thats why that is Milan FFS
Even if we somehow manage to win EL, cup and get top 4(which wouldnt be nessecery if we win EL) they should still fire him no matter what. He is not profile that we need and we will not get to next step with him. Doesnt have any tactics to implement(as seen against Inter in semis of CL and 5-1 defeat at the start of the season, as well as against Juve and Napoli). So at the amd of the season the only logical solution is Conte or De zerbi if he wants to get away from Premier league which i doubt.
So if he meets and exceeds expectations we should still fire him because he’s not the right ‘profile’???
Inter don’t have a Scudetto. We do.
And Pioli was the one who ended our awful run against Juve and hammered Napoli last season.
But then again it seems actual achievements don’t matter to you. It’s about the ‘profile’.
The profile you’re going to get is Conte who was pretty awful in the champions league even before he lost his mojo at Tottenham.
PS Maybe change your username to something more respectful.
Pioli is arguably the most tactical versatile coach in serie a. Does his tactics always work? No, as you pointed out against Inter this season (although Malik basically gave away two opening goals there, and good luck coming back from that against Inter no matter what tactics you have). Can he take us to the next level (top 16 in Europe)? Don’t know. But “doesn’t have any tactics to implement” is ridiculous.
So you want “profile” than “achievements”? Doesn’t makes any sense.
We’ll be in the relegation zone by then the way 90% of commentators think
Bravo.
Pioli should stay, and our injury problem should be fixed.
You don’t know what you are talking about.. @flyingturtle. Its a popularity contest for you.. Big names dont win titles.. knowledge does.. and he is loved by players, he proved his love for Milan.. and he is not doing bad at all. Look at Pochettino at Chelsea.. Big name. Big club…5 times more money spent… Nowhere to be found.. Look at Man Utd.. 4 times more money spent.. where are they? Man utd spent on Anthony, more than Milan did for whole summer.. This crisis is all Cardinale’s fault, not Pioli’s. This American mobster is only here to wash his dirty money.. he doesnt care about Milan.. only his pocket.. He put a salary cap like this is american sport ..so no top class player want to join us, cause we cant pay those wages… That is why we lost 15 top class mostly Italian players to inter Roma Lazio, Juventus, Napoli… That is not Pioli’s fault.. Maldini brought players that could create new legacy for Milan and he asked for more money for wages and transfers, Cardinale sacked him… That is the problem.. we play well with what we got… Average player like Krunic wants to leave to turkish league, because they can pay him more.. that is a disgrace.. You say “we are Milan”??!! fenerbahce has more money for wages then us!? Disgrace.. Dont blame Pioli for that. When all players are healthy, Milan plays well.
elliot and maldini put on the salary cap. You’ve no idea what you’re talking about do you?
Fener pays 51m for salaries and Milan pays 86M€. Again you have no idea what you’re talking about, do you?
Anyone who thinks Pioli should stay has no idea about football and its not worth my time to discuss it
F*cking sunday football fan
Maldini put on a salary cap ? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahabahahaha where did u get that from? Is that you Gerry? When he literally publicly asked for a higher wage cap….hmmm I wonder why he would do that…if he’s able to influence the wage budget. “We had to have alot of conversations about Ibra” lol
Be careful what u guys wish for. The coach might not be the problem
Look at this brah.
– asked for a higher wage cap-
A cap is a f*cking cap. Savvy?
Lol are u serious? First of all a cap is a limit. Eg I can limit myself to $50 in alcohol per month but later, raise the limit to $100. Savvy? 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Maldini doesn’t make the limit, he’s never had that sort of power. That’s Furlani, Scaroni and co.
Oh the great Pioli debate. I’m quite indifferent to if he stays or goes. This is going to sound Pro-Pioli but it’s not. But I do support the coach and as always whoever plays on the pitch.
Results: First of all Pioli is one of Milan’s winningest coaches of all time. Right up there with Capello, Ancelotti and Sacchi. And he’s done so with a VASTLY inferior squad than the aforementioned 3 legendary coaches (only Mike may get into those squads, the rest don’t even come close). This alone makes him vastly underrated. We dont bad talk, Capello, Sacchi or Ancelotti, do we? So why do we have so many questions about Pioli?
Style of play: we had admittedly better gameplay earlier on with Pioli as a coach — referring here to the post COVID period for about 2 years straight. We were absolutely the best team to look at with a distinct playing style and high pressing game. Unfortunately, with high press teams (see Pool, Barca back in the day), eventually players become tired and the teams need to refresh. Both the aforementioned teams declined until they were able to replenish their squads again. Replenishment is directly related to the funds you have to do so and because we dont we have a slower rate of replenishment. But we can’t deny that we have had a nice style of play. And even now we still are a top 5 scoring team in the league. Its true we lack what we had before but that could be due to tiredness and lack of innovation in tactics. It could also be win fatigue… we’ve been accustomed to winning once more so we are more critical of the team. However, when we have our full strength team, we play very well. This is a very far cry from the banter years where we had absolutely zero ideas. Added to the fact that our offense is so good, teams automatically close up (except Napoli and a few other attack minded teams), and our beautiful game takes a hit. (Earlier on we had the luxury of being a team in banter years shadows so we weren’t taken as seriously)
Further to this we changed our formation to 433 which is a distinct style. With the 4231 you can do more things. Do I like our style? While I think we can do better I’m not sure another coach can do much better unless he’s one of the absolute top coaches (Pep, Klopp)
Player development: Pioli has developed players, whether it was by force (Kalulu, Thiaw), by luck or intentionally. One can’t deny that Theo and Leao are much better than when they first arrived and are sought after by big teams. There are many examples of this…Tonali, Bennacer, Tomori, even Diaz. When given time, there is clear growth. Of course you can’t expect all incoming players to develop at the same rate and there are examples where it didn’t work out (Saelemakers, CDK). But the core starters have improved under him. And he gives youth players some game time. We have never been a club that developed youth and progressed them into the first team so we’re making headway in this sense. Calabria was the only youth product that really “made it” since Maldini and that was almost 30 years ago.
I’m not saying we should never change our coach but the lack of respect for a coach who has brought us much is quite disgusting. Do I get frustrated at how we play sometimes? Absolutely. Do I think Pioli was in over his head about changing formation, tactics and declaring he had the players he wanted? abso-friggin-lutely. Do I think we should change coach during the season? Definitely no. Do I think they should change coach in the summer? That’s where I seriously hit the pause button. We need to reflect on what’s available out there and also know that by hiring a new coach….things will take time….. which is not available with this fanbase.
I don’t believe there are many coaches who can bring a team, much less a top team that has incredible amounts of pressure, to third place without a centre back pairing. I don’t believe any of the other coaches below 3rd place are automatically better. The grass is seemingly greener on the other side. Motta has done well but how many have actually seen his team play? I believe people are tired of what they’re seeing now and thinking a change of coach can cure these ills. Motta’s facing the same issues top teams face when they become dangerous – opponents are beginning to close up and park the bus against BOLOGNA (as evidenced by their last 2 games). And so we’re back to square 1. And again I’m not against a new coach but think about having to do better than a consistent top 4/UCL spot, top 4/5 goals scored, Scudetto credentials and so on. These are not easy things. And I think as fans we’ve gotten in over our own heads.