Stefano Pioli’s selection choices must again be scrutinised after a heavily rotated AC Milan team dropped points against 19th-placed Cremonese last night.
In recent weeks we have already written at length about the exaggerated rotation carried out by Pioli in recent weeks had an underlying error: the players must be ‘tested’ over the course of a whole season and not with sporadic calls to arms all together at once.
So here we are to comment on yet another slip-up by Milan in the league that even yesterday, against a modest Cremonese side who are heading for the drop, even came close to an embarrassing defeat.
Pioli made six changes compared to the previous match at the Stadio Olimpico against Roma, which did not yield a win but a 1-1 draw which again needed late heroics. The result last night was an uncertain, incomplete and soulless Milan.
This time, unlike what happened against Bologna and Empoli, it was not the Champions League round that prompted Pioli to rest the starting players en masse, but the head-to-head challenge against Lazio in the league.
Here the first contradiction: the points do not have a different weight depending on who you meet, yesterday it was essential to get three just as it will be essential (after the dropped points against Cremonese) to now win against Maurizio Sarri’s team.
Milan have been able to get into trouble all on their own and now they are preparing to have to play for Champions League qualification with no more mistakes permitted and all their lifelines used up.
This is the reason why it is highly probable that Pioli’s rotation will now be put in the attic, forcing the owners to starters overtime in the most important week of all: that of the Euroderby.
The turnover, therefore, from an antidote turns into poison and if before the errors in the transfer market held up as a justification, now it is time for Pioli to also assume his own responsibilities.
