Official: Stefano Pioli Thread

forward said:

Like I said in the match thread, he taught the team how to attack.
Now he needs to teach them how to defend.

Every time Conti was left in 1 on 1 situations, we looked exposed af.
Someone needs to cover his ass all the time or we need a different player.

Same goes for Biglia.
He exposes the defense, but worst of all, 1 shit pass from him and we concede.

Pioli needs to figure out these 2 issues and we should be fine.

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Conti is pretty much unfieldable at this point, Calabria will improve that quite a bit.

Biglia wasn‘t that bad overall, one of his better games for us. Options here are limited, there is only Bennacer and he isn‘t exactly that strong in defense.

Oh and fuck that short pass only bullshit. Longballs fast and direct, that’s how you’re supposed to play top class football. #PioliIN

theo with freedom to attack, kessie on the left with more defensive work
hakan a bit more centrally what allow to play more with other players

dont know if he is good or bad coach but at least looks like coach with ideas

edit: but suso?!

VooDooDoll said:

theo with freedom to attack, kessie on the left with more defensive work
hakan a bit more centrally what allow to play more with other players

dont know if he is good or bad coach but at least looks like coach with ideas

edit: but suso?!

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Kessie can be replaced with Bennacer. This will give us more swifty game changes but less strength and heading.

Suso? Bench?

joyrider said:

Kessie can be replaced with Bennacer. This will give us more swifty game changes but less strength and heading.

Suso? Bench?

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question is if against stronger teams we can play benna over kessie

suso... more like suso for 90 minutes?

I'll cut him some slack for today and tomorrow. It was a great performance yesterday, one of the best I've seen from this team in years. The result was indeed disgusting, but it was not on him, if anything, it was on the players.

VooDooDoll said:

question is if against stronger teams we can play benna over kessie

suso... more like suso for 90 minutes?

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Bennacer can grow, he’s so much more agile already than Kessie.

90mins in the bench? Just to try you know. No serious hard feelings.

Bennacer instead of Kessie is a positive move and I hope we see that very soon.

He brought back some of the intensity and urgency which the fraud took away from this team. As expected.

I love how the team attacked with numbers in the first half. Hakan is a final 3rd player. So is Paqueta.

Suso played and moved better than usual, but if you're going to attack with numbers then you better defend and press with numbers too.
You can't sustain such tactics with Suso.

The last 15 mins was madness. He was out of subs, but Hakan should've been dropped down to the midfield. What's the logic behind having 2 CBs, 1 midfielder, 2 wingbacks and 5 attackers when you have the lead with only minutes remaining of the game?

Leao...Piatek....I think we need both. We need goalscorers. We need our most talented attackers on the pitch. Simple as that.
How about a 442, or 4411 with Hakan and Krunic on the flanks? Leao gets the freedom he needs and the CF in the box he can deliver to. Hakan moves in centrally when Leao does his trademark wide targetman thing. With Krunic, Pioli can easily switch to a 3 man midfield and 433 without making any subs.

Yeah, would like to see Leao+Piatek

leao needs cf next to him...
suso shouldnt play (at least as much)...

but today conti, calab, biglia, kessie + suso wasnt even primavera level

preseason should be for organize a team, sad we wasted it with gp.
now team looks like mess because of results and changes and stupid mistakes made by same players.

period with gp costed us this season, hope we will get better players (shit one get exposed badly this year with our open play) because with this you can go nowhere.

Feel sad for Pioli, even though he's a confirmed midtable coach it's not fair to him to clean up the absolute shit that GP left behind, dear God.

Just goes to show what a good job Gattuso did. We are closer to the bottom 3 than the top 4 at the moment.

This isn't on Pioli this is down to who ever forced Gattuso out and brought in the incompetent GP. If that was Maldini then it is on him.

Salvaging this season is looking less and less likely.

well gattuso wasnt as bad as many said here but during his period (1,5 season) we played less than 10 good games and we didnt face top teams all the time.
el results, benevento, etc.; our players never looked like they have any idea how to play in attack under him - even shit players in shit clubs usually have schema what to do.

playing defensive football and rely on good day of someone in attack ... will never work against better teams (wont even work round after round for longer time), thats why i believe we are changing to more balanced play style. Problem is more offensive approach require good players in attack and more responsibility in defense from players there and ... here is our problem.

'1 point behind 4th' just fooled people because we never were doing good on the pitch. We were grinding points, got almost enough for top4, its not something what you may repeat season after season ... thats all.

Boban1982 said:

Just goes to show what a good job Gattuso did. We are closer to the bottom 3 than the top 4 at the moment.

This isn't on Pioli this is down to who ever forced Gattuso out and brought in the incompetent GP. If that was Maldini then it is on him.

Salvaging this season is looking less and less likely.

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This is actually very similar to the opening months of last season with Rino.
Pioli is also playing a high risk, high reward game, which isn't paying off.
The main difference is that Higuain, Cutrone and Bonaventura were clinical compared to Leao, Paqueta, Suso, etc.
The team only stopped leaking goals when Rino dropped the attacking ambitions and was forced to integrate Bakayoko following Biglia's injury.
Bakayoko played a crucial role to the defense that kept the most clean sheets in Italy - not just in open play but also on set pieces. That became evident once again when Biglia returned from injury and Rino thought he could afford dropping Baka.

Pioli does not have Baka on the bench, and neither would Rino had he stayed.
Matching the 68 points of last season with these players would've been a massive challenge regardless of coach.

Pioli will probably also settle for something less ambitious eventually, like Rino, Seedorf & Montella also did. More compact, less risks, more reactive, attack with fewer numbers. Which would be sad, because it might get slightly better short-term results but it has gotten us nowhere in the last 6 years. It's basically settling for mediocrity.

I don't think we're that far off from handling this progressive 4-1-4-1 though.
But Pioli needs to give bigger priority to work-rate and athleticism for it to be balanced. Conti-Paqueta-Suso on the same flank is suicidal. Conti is a disaster, but so many of his fuckups could've been avoided with a more energetic RCM than Paqueta. And Paqueta wouldn't tire out as quickly if he wasn't forced into doing the off-ball work of 2 players. Look how many times it's Paqueta and one of Leao/Hakan double pressing the CBs. Why?
Like I said, the combination of these 3 is suicidal.
Suso needs to be dropped no matter how you twist and turn it.
Same goes for Conti. Calabria is not as bad, but Duarte should also be considered.
Paqueta might be okay, without Suso, but I wouldn't mind Krunic starting ahead of him.


Biglia leaves a lot to be desired, but the Bakayoko replacement(Bennacer) looks more like a Mauri replacement.
Okay that was a bit harsh on Ismael, but he's no anchor.

A CDM/anchor and a solid RB should be the top priorities for the winter mercato.

Goodfella said:

Biglia leaves a lot to be desired, but the Bakayoko replacement(Bennacer) looks more like a Mauri replacement.
Okay that was a bit harsh on Ismael, but he's no anchor.

A CDM/anchor and a solid RB should be the top priorities for the winter mercato.

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Bennacer is a player suited to a slow build-up style. Not the frantic stuff we are playing now. We absolutely need a real defensive midfielder if we are going to do better with Pioli, and obviously a right-back. Certainly the top two priorities.

Lol

So many individual mistakes is just a testament to how damage GP did to this team.

As a team we are playing much better. We are creating chances and scoring goals.

Things to fix:
- Bench Biglia and Conti
- Tell Kessie to cover Calabria's ass. If all else fails try Borini at RB.
- Practice defending set pieces
- Practice attacking set pieces
- Pick a new freekick taker instead of Kebab
- If you don't bench Suso at least sub him out at 50-60 minutes every game

VooDooDoll said:

well gattuso wasnt as bad as many said here but during his period (1,5 season) we played less than 10 good games and we didnt face top teams all the time.
el results, benevento, etc.; our players never looked like they have any idea how to play in attack under him - even shit players in shit clubs usually have schema what to do.

playing defensive football and rely on good day of someone in attack ... will never work against better teams (wont even work round after round for longer time), thats why i believe we are changing to more balanced play style. Problem is more offensive approach require good players in attack and more responsibility in defense from players there and ... here is our problem.

'1 point behind 4th' just fooled people because we never were doing good on the pitch. We were grinding points, got almost enough for top4, its not something what you may repeat season after season ... thats all.

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less than 10 games? are you serious? we played well for at least half of the games(which still isn't enough for club like us). i still remember games where we lost points undeservedly and because of stupid referees(can't say the same for any games this season. maybe against torino and lecce.).

he improved lots of players. calabria, bona, donna, zapata, baka, rr, borini, abate, even mauri was good when he had to fill in, biglia and hakan second half in his first season.

attack became static once he decided to stay compact but that happened after winter break. this luckily worked because of piatek and donna's miracle form(so not gattuso's tactic). after derby i think he broke down, probably had falling out with management and things got worse. he still managed to put up a fight during end of the season winning 4 out of 4.

you say he was 1 point away from 4th, but he was even closer. he was actually 10 mins away from 4th. and all this with a huge injury crisis and all the higuain, kessie, baka problems.

Horrible in-game adjustments tonight.
He really needs to stop doing these insane midfielder-out-for-attacker subs.
The team was hanging by a thread in the first half when Krunic and Theo were getting caught out of position over and over again.
What made him think it was a good idea to take off Paqueta for Leao after 52 mins when it's 1-1 against Lazio?
Why would you make such drastic changes under those circumstances? Radically changing Hakan's role doesn't excuse it one bit.

I don't have a problem with taking off Paqueta or introducing Leao per se.
But this was clearly not the time to take out a midfielder for a striker.
It didn't just hurt us defensively, it solidified Lazio's control of this game.
They got the inevitable goal on the counter at the end, and Pioli's response was to take off another midfielder.
This was all too similar to the Lecce game. I hope Pioli finally learns this time, and hopefully the reaction isn't another SPAL type of setup. We can't go from one extreme to another forever.

I didn't like the Rebic sub either, but that one will at least hopefully shut up those who think we have a prime Robben on the bench.

Glad i dont watch these games live anymore, this team is like watching a sunday league game.

helloAgain said:

less than 10 games? are you serious? we played well for at least half of the games(which still isn't enough for club like us). i still remember games where we lost points undeservedly and because of stupid referees(can't say the same for any games this season. maybe against torino and lecce.).

he improved lots of players. calabria, bona, donna, zapata, baka, rr, borini, abate, even mauri was good when he had to fill in, biglia and hakan second half in his first season.

attack became static once he decided to stay compact but that happened after winter break. this luckily worked because of piatek and donna's miracle form(so not gattuso's tactic). after derby i think he broke down, probably had falling out with management and things got worse. he still managed to put up a fight during end of the season winning 4 out of 4.

you say he was 1 point away from 4th, but he was even closer. he was actually 10 mins away from 4th. and all this with a huge injury crisis and all the higuain, kessie, baka problems.

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didnt notice, sorry

we didnt play good football under gattuso
we had a problem to dominate and create chances even about relegation level teams and thats was my point.
whole gattusout was more about it (pretty sure they have new XXXout this season) than about points.
we just played defensive football and thats all, 0 pressure, 0 organization in attack, just hope someone will do something.

also he didnt improve anyone - it was just result of many players staying close to each other and covering mistakes ...
look no this players now - calabria, rr, biglia... all just average when you ask them to do anything with the ball rather than safe pass; zapata, abate... didnt make mistakes as cb... thats all (donna grow as every youngster would).
hakan hmm, you may say pioli improved him as nobody but i dont get his problem tbh, 25yo with once very good performance once bad and that happen all the time. i lost hope for him because i doubt good player would have so many mistakes with ball control, precise passing etc.

How did he manage to play at least on par with Juventus with midfield of Krunic, Bennacer, Paqueta is beyond me. All of them quite technical and not a single defensive minded player in team except CB's. Pioli did very good this game, has to be said.

What a difference in midfield from Gattuso's Milan. Bakayoko + Kessie vs Krunic, Bennacer, Paqueta

I really liked the first half christmas tree setup, as that worked to reduce Pjanic's influence immensely. The regista is crucial for Sarri's system to work and we both marked him and blocked passing lanes to him so well with the double team combo of Suso and Hakan.



Hakan and Suso's defensive work also allowed our mezz'ali to stay a bit wider and give the fullbacks some protection, and both Conti and Theo benefitted immensely from it.

This is probably the defensive shape which gives us far more guarantees than any 433 setup with Suso tracking a fullback.

Against teams who play two players on the flanks, this system will still have some issues, and at times with that amount of space around Bennacer due to the wider position of the mezz'ali we could be in some problems with forwards dropping off into that space.

But as a baseline defensive shape I like it.....and we can make some tweaks depending on who we play to narrow the mezz'ali or go 4411 like the second half when Jack came on.

That was also the most switched on and impressive defensive performance from Suso that I've ever seen.

I'm really happy with him so far, considering the position he's in.

Our fullbacks are looking really good, which is the cornerstone of modern football. I like that they're not glued up to the flank, but constantly cut inside (especially Theo), which makes it easier to break down the opponent's defense.

Wingers and mids are alternating flanks or grouping together to overwhelm the opponent.

Starting line-ups and subs are very good so far, but with some room for improvement.

If he can figure out how to fix our sterile attack, we might just finally become enjoyable to watch.

I hope Maldini and Zvone will work their ass of in winter mercato to help him out. Top 4 is far, but still within reach if we keep up the momentum.

Who do we want to replace Pioli this summer?
I think Giampaolo was a wake up call for management and we’ll go for someone with top level experience this time around.
Allegri, Ancelotti, and Van Bommel sound interesting. Someone like Spalleti could be playing it safe. There’s always Pochettino or Wenger, but it’s a long shot. We could secure a Euros coach and coordinate the market, like Mancini Luis Enrique Sheva. Or we could wait for who’s available in the summer.
Key factor will be getting him in early. Who’s a good and feasible option to take over after Pioli?

nanook said:

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Milan2012 said:

Who do we want to replace Pioli this summer?
I think Giampaolo was a wake up call for management and we’ll go for someone with top level experience this time around.
Allegri, Ancelotti, and Van Bommel sound interesting. Someone like Spalleti could be playing it safe. There’s always Pochettino or Wenger, but it’s a long shot. We could secure a Euros coach and coordinate the market, like Mancini Luis Enrique Sheva. Or we could wait for who’s available in the summer.
Key factor will be getting him in early. Who’s a good and feasible option to take over after Pioli?

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Pioli will stay

4 out of 4. Will 2020 be a good year for #Piolitics?