A coach isn’t a miracle worker....I think around 90% of success on field is down to the quality of the players. A good coach can add the icing on the cake per se, with a good tactical game plan, motivating and adding a winning mentality, or getting the players extremely fit and hardworking, but the foundations will always be the players.
Gattuso was indeed perfect for motivating a group of young inexperienced players (along with a healthy dose of rubbish and mediocre players) and setting us up to be hard to score against. He even had us building the play really well from the back, but the lack of quality, speed and physicality of the attacking players saw so many plays breakdown or slow down and not result in enough chances created from the foundation that our buildup play gave.
You can criticize his tactics in a couple one off games, but overall he did the best with what he could and over a season, the tru quality of his players and squad showed. No amount of motivation, fitness or tactical work will last long enough to hide the flaws of the players for a whole season.
Gattuso managed to make a squad almost reach top 4 without any ss/wingers/inside forwards, Suso who performs for 3 months a season, literally 2 CMs for a large part of the season (Kessie and Bakayoko when Biglia got injured), one of which isn’t a natural anchor who actually performed decently due to his coaching and teaching, losing his only midfielder capable of scoring or creating in Jack for the whole season and somehow getting them almost 70 points. Not to mention losing your star striker in January and then having to change, and then getting a young Brazilian import mid season (and both performed better in their first few months than they are now)
That is an achievement that he deserves credit for that many overlook. Until we get rid of rubbish mediocre pussy mentality players, no matter who the coach is they will suffer under the expectations of managing Milan.
That being said, Giampaolo isn’t a motivator and is one of those philosopher type coaches. He is the exact wrong type of coach we need in our circumstances and we may well need to fire him. He doesn’t have the tools he needs to implement what he wants and doesn’t seem adaptable to the mediocrity that we have.
