brk
Milan Legend
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2015
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- 30,050
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I'm not talking about the first 11 or how we play in specific games. My point was that in the long term, we had two strategic goals that the entire plan was built on: Play in a very system-based way (we chose a high pressing, transition oriented game) and to take risks with young players that can give you way more upside than established players.This is absolutely true in the case of Adli, but we also have to consider the possibility that the young players added to the squad last summer aren’t good enough?
Dest and CDK were just awful this season. Pioli gave both of them plenty of chances, way too much in CDK’s godforsaken case. Dest got like exiled from the team, I don’t know if he just sucks and or he had an attitude issue but he’s out of favor.
Pobega has been probably about as expected? I never thought of him as a 3rd or 4th option at DM/CAM/CM, he needs to be lower on the pecking order than that, but our midfield quality was not great this season.
Vranckx is 19. I like what I’ve seen in general, his last appearance showcasing some very solid long range passing. But again he’s 19 and probably nowhere near disciplined enough to play DM consistently. Next to Adli, this is the one I think Pioli has gotten most wrong, he could have been used more earlier in the season and might have proven to be a valuable rotation player.
Thiaw could have been utilized earlier, but it takes time to settle into a new club and league, especially at 21. Ultimately, he looks like a potential future starter for us and arguably should already be given his form + Kalulu/Kjaer fading.
My honest opinion is that the squad is flawed in 2 ways: 1) The starting XI isn’t good enough AND 2) Our depth is pretty weak. Pioli has talked about needing 23 players that can play at virtually the same level. We didn’t have that this year, not even close. Our starting XI had glaring weaknesses at DM (Kessie), RW, CAM (Pioli’s fault), and CF as good as Giroud has been for us.
For the first three years we pretty much followed that plan religiously, with a few exceptions with some leaders like Ibra and Kjaer to steady the ship and give guidance. We had early success that proved we're on the right track.
I feel like things went off the rails in two ways. Leao exploding gave Pioli a superweapon that he became addicted to. We stopped trying to find team-focused ways to break teams down and simply ended up designing the whole strategy around isolating Leao with a fullback. This goes against the idea of us being a system first team, as we're now a Leao team.
The second error was that Pioli became obsessed with winning and that made him much more risk averse with youth and players he's not used to. Thiaw only played because of an emergency. Arguably even Kalulu was the same way. What Pioli sees in training clearly isn't enough for him to understand what sort of players he has on his hands, which explains the surprise when one of them performs, since he then suddenly accepts that he has an actual player he can use.
Him saying I want 23 first team players is also bullshit since this season he clearly has an A team and a B team, and the players feel and know this. Those that have his trust know they're undroppable. There isn't competition anymore, and that's made some 'starters' get complacent, especially after winning the title.


) and 30-40m for Alvarez is ambitious