The Rumour Commode XLI: Ragnarok

[DonSilvio]

At the start of the year:
View attachment 19535

From expected 25M losses for the current year to 9.8M profit in the first 6 months of this season alone (not including UCL knockout prize money).

Take that non-accounting crew.

 

[Balo45]

and yet it continues to be argued. This season he started CDK almost immediately and Thiaw started a CL semi-final for Christ’s sake.

He integrated a bunch of young players into the core of the team, unfortunately, the more recent young players he has been given have in many cases kind of sucked (CDK, Dest, Pobega) or they were very young/green like Thiaw and Aster.

My biggest issue is not using Adli and Vranckx more, but the latter is 19.

We literally wouldn’t have made it this far from regular 6th place finishes to being a CL club without the ability the team has shown to play and integrate younger players. It’s actually an insane argument.

I would have wanted adli and Vranckx to play more as well but like…they honestly just might not be that good. That’s a very real possibility. He isn’t freezing out 30 mil players for fuck sake

 

[Rossonero10]

Pedri, Dybala, and Leao are the three big stars selected for this adidas x Prada collection.

The last time I can remember one of our players being a featured player in boot releases like this was SES with the Nike GSII.

Why are they making Leao look like the 5’2” sidekick?

THAT’S THE FOOKIN REIGNING SERIE A MVP, AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT?!

 

[Samaldinho]

The list of young players that have played a lot and done well here is like Tonali, leao, kalulu, Bennacer, Brahim

And there are people here whining about what started with Hauge and has moved to adli, vranckx, kerkez. Players who may or may not have some talent but we’re not talking about aubameyang, gourcuff and paqueta. It’s a very small sample list and none of them prove Pioli is inadequate with young players at all. Thiaw taking have a season to play after arriving from…checks notes…the second division in Germany in considered a cardinal sin.

Really weird stuff to whine about

The list of young players that have played a lot and done well here is like Tonali, leao, kalulu, Bennacer, Brahim

And there are people here whining about what started with Hauge and has moved to adli, vranckx, kerkez. Players who may or may not have some talent but we’re not talking about aubameyang, gourcuff and paqueta. It’s a very small sample list and none of them prove Pioli is inadequate with young players at all. Thiaw taking have a season to play after arriving from…checks notes…the second division in Germany in considered a cardinal sin.

Really weird stuff to whine about

The whole "Pioli doesn't play the players until they're ready" is a notion that was bandied about Kalulu. And with Kalulu? I get it. The kid hadn't played a single minute of professional football in his life. So Kalulu? Transition him into the first team, makes sense, honestly, makes sense. Got it. No problem.

Thiaw, Vranckx, and actually, worst of all: Adli? They had experience in the top flight.

The problem is that they looked like they could contribute... from their sub appearances. If we were like 9 points back of Napoli and just couldn't sustain a title push, maybe I'd be more lenient... but he's suffered.

What about Pobega? The kid plays for Torino and gets called up for the Italian national team, in their deepest position by far, and he gets these random and inconsistent minutes? While Tonali and Bennacer are being burnt out? Tonali has been pushed to the limit, he exceeded his entire minute count from last year, weeks ago.

And when it comes to Hauge... Hauge got more time than the other young players we have now. Adli has gotten 140 minutes.

The idea that "well y'know, maybe Adli isn't that good?"

Bro. Adli was in a Ligue 1 team of the year, as a CM, next to... Tchouameni. You know who else was in that TOMT? Mike Maignan.

Thiaw only "took a season" because Pioli wouldn't play him. His first sub appearance he looked like a monster. Vranckx gets to come on, when we're down a man against Sampdoria, and his energy pushes us over the line for a win, and then... doesn't play. The kid wins us a game against Fiorentina... and then doesn't get to play.

I don't care about Hauge, nor do I care about Kerkez--we flipped both of them for major profits, yay Maldini selling, but like... the comparison between Hauge or Kalulu's integration and those of our new crop of young players don't match up. The cynical view of Pioli is that he only turned to his young players because of the insane injury problems (of Pioli's own making) forced his hand to play Kalulu.

At the end of the day, winning cures all, and winning justifies all sorts of behavior. However, the arguments in this case are "maybe they're not that good?" and "the transfer market sucked, Pioli didn't get... Kessie replacement, Hakan replacement, and a center back (oh shit, Thiaw played, nvm)."

Pioli is fucking up against Spezia, we're not talking about Pioli getting out-gunned against Juve or Tottenham.

These young players he has have shown they are worth playing, but he refuses. The fact CDK can suck that much for so long and still get minutes, is mind boggling. Fine, yes, the kid cost a lot, blah blah blah, but Adli was scouted a long time ago, went back on loan, we clearly believed in him enough to put money into him, let him play on loan... to do what? To play 140 minutes? The kid captained his team at 21. He's not a primavera player.

I think there are serious questions to be asked over Pioli's use of his squad this year, I'm sorry.

 

[Papa_midnight]

I swear if they sign another Belgian I'm gonna have my own march on Liege

I wud love this. So much potential

 

[Panache]

Pioli not playing young players is legit one of the stupidest, most absurd, lazy ideas that I’ve seen put on here ngl. Was it two seasons ago where we routinely putting out the youngest team in serie a? Or was it the youngest team in Europe’s top 5 leagues?

Pioli doesn’t play primavera players? Aren’t they not even in the top tier of the youth leagues? The list of “young” players who have not played much here is considerably and factually lower than the amount of “young” players that have gotten a lot of time here. Like to the point where you literally cannot even argue that point.

Almost our whole team qualifies as young so him not playing young players is a baseless argument. He doesn’t play the ones that don’t impress him in training.

I doubt Pioli looks at a player killing it in training and says “Nah…I’m not playing you, I don’t give a shit how good you are”.
MMM just gave him mediocre players last summer. The good one, Thiaw, got his opportunity and is now a starter.

 

[Omer]

Almost our whole team qualifies as young so him not playing young players is a baseless argument. He doesn’t play the ones that don’t impress him in training.

I doubt Pioli looks at a player killing it in training and says “Nah…I’m not playing you, I don’t give a shit how good you are”.
MMM just gave him mediocre players last summer. The good one, Thiaw, got his opportunity and is now a starter.

It took 2.5 years of training for Pioli to understand that Diaz is better at RW and the AM position in his formation works better with a CM type player?? And the whole time the RW had mediocre players like Salad / Messias / Samu!!

What is he seeing in training?

I mean not that Pioli is a really bad coach because he's getting similar number of points as the other big teams in Italy. So he's at least on a similar level as those coaches. But there is definitely stuff for him to improve on....

 

[pippofan]

I gotta be honest, I haven't seen anything special in Vranckx just some run of the mill mid who does the safe things. He has a good fisique but that's all. The real mystery is Adli who hasn't gotten a fair chance and we don't know if it's an attitude problem, lazy training or what. Any coach would use players that give him the best chance to succeed so there has to be something personal. Pioli never really answers the questions, has his usual vague responses and never gets pressed to be more specific. I understand that he had to play CDK because of what he cost but after so many failures why not give Adli a shot? It's not that he had much to lose replacing the Belgian. MM started at a disadvantage because of the contract situation so players went elsewhere but they could have done much better that the last second loan of Dest, who is really horrible. Maybe they watched You Tube video of him and were convinced he was good. Renewing Florenzi who's old and injury prone was another costly mistake. I'm not saying Paolo should be fired because he had two excellent summer mercatos but he has to do exponentially better if he wants to keep his job.
This summer there's no excuse, there should be no distractions, no contracts controversies, and if the scouting really like a player they should quickly and not haggle for a couple of millions.

 

[Panache]

It took 2.5 years of training for Pioli to understand that Diaz is better at RW and the AM position in his formation works better with a CM type player?? And the whole time the RW had mediocre players like Salad / Messias / Samu!!

What is he seeing in training?

I mean not that Pioli is a really bad coach because he's getting similar number of points as the other big teams in Italy. So he's at least on a similar level as those coaches. But there is definitely stuff for him to improve on....

Diaz, Salad, Samu, Messias are all mediocre. That’s not much of an argument. Give him a an actually good RW (like Leao at LW) and the choice will be EASY.

Didn’t he insist on the talented Leao (before he was ever scoring or assisting like he does today) at a time when many people wanted Rebic and Hauge to play at LW?

Give him credit where credit is due.

 

[Omer]

Diaz, Salad, Samu, Messias are all mediocre. That’s not much of an argument. Give him a an actually good RW (like Leao at LW) and the choice will be EASY.

Didn’t he insist on the talented Leao (before he was ever scoring or assisting like he does today) at a time when many people wanted Rebic and Hauge to play at LW?

Give him credit where credit is due.

You didn't see what I said... I said that Pioli is on a similar level as the other big Italian clubs coaches and not a really bad coach. So obviously as a decent coach he would have done some good things!! Good things including playing and developing Leao! So you don't have to bring up all the good things he did over the last 3 years!!

What I was saying, is it took 2.5 years to see that Diaz position is better at RW and that the midfield is more secure with a CM playing there. So maybe he's not properly seeing what's happening in training. As in you said he doesn't play certain players because he sees they aren't good in training. I mean in the game before last, Adli was on of the best players when he came on. And in the Samp game, the team is winning 5-0 and he doesn't even get to come on as a sub, How does that make any sense? Can the player be much worse in training than in actual games?? The real games are more difficult and competitive than training...

I already gave Pioli credit as a decent coach. Obviously he has to improve in some areas, if he didn't then he would be of the level of Guardiola and even Guardiola has had to learn and improve...

 

[Ryo]

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View attachment 19547

 

[Balo45]

The whole "Pioli doesn't play the players until they're ready" is a notion that was bandied about Kalulu. And with Kalulu? I get it. The kid hadn't played a single minute of professional football in his life. So Kalulu? Transition him into the first team, makes sense, honestly, makes sense. Got it. No problem.

Thiaw, Vranckx, and actually, worst of all: Adli? They had experience in the top flight.

The problem is that they looked like they could contribute... from their sub appearances. If we were like 9 points back of Napoli and just couldn't sustain a title push, maybe I'd be more lenient... but he's suffered.

What about Pobega? The kid plays for Torino and gets called up for the Italian national team, in their deepest position by far, and he gets these random and inconsistent minutes? While Tonali and Bennacer are being burnt out? Tonali has been pushed to the limit, he exceeded his entire minute count from last year, weeks ago.

And when it comes to Hauge... Hauge got more time than the other young players we have now. Adli has gotten 140 minutes.

The idea that "well y'know, maybe Adli isn't that good?"

Bro. Adli was in a Ligue 1 team of the year, as a CM, next to... Tchouameni. You know who else was in that TOMT? Mike Maignan.

Thiaw only "took a season" because Pioli wouldn't play him. His first sub appearance he looked like a monster. Vranckx gets to come on, when we're down a man against Sampdoria, and his energy pushes us over the line for a win, and then... doesn't play. The kid wins us a game against Fiorentina... and then doesn't get to play.

I don't care about Hauge, nor do I care about Kerkez--we flipped both of them for major profits, yay Maldini selling, but like... the comparison between Hauge or Kalulu's integration and those of our new crop of young players don't match up. The cynical view of Pioli is that he only turned to his young players because of the insane injury problems (of Pioli's own making) forced his hand to play Kalulu.

At the end of the day, winning cures all, and winning justifies all sorts of behavior. However, the arguments in this case are "maybe they're not that good?" and "the transfer market sucked, Pioli didn't get... Kessie replacement, Hakan replacement, and a center back (oh shit, Thiaw played, nvm)."

Pioli is fucking up against Spezia, we're not talking about Pioli getting out-gunned against Juve or Tottenham.

These young players he has have shown they are worth playing, but he refuses. The fact CDK can suck that much for so long and still get minutes, is mind boggling. Fine, yes, the kid cost a lot, blah blah blah, but Adli was scouted a long time ago, went back on loan, we clearly believed in him enough to put money into him, let him play on loan... to do what? To play 140 minutes? The kid captained his team at 21. He's not a primavera player.

I think there are serious questions to be asked over Pioli's use of his squad this year, I'm sorry.

Sam you’re arguing a separate point with me.

I was responding and basically laughing at the idea that Pioli doesn’t play young players, nothing more and nothing less. Which we can probably agree on, because it’s factually wrong. As I already said, the list of players who are young and have gotten chances here is a lot bigger than the ones who have failed.

I didn’t say every young player will play and grow under Pioli, as you know that would be impossible. But what I do know is implying that Pioli won’t play someone on the basis of them being young or inexperienced is just silly, too many examples counter this. The players that don’t get as many opportunities I would think are for a different reason. Maybe he has an aversion to their playing style. Maybe like you were saying he’s just been stubborn in a delicate season and stuck to what he knows to a fault. Maybe they don’t train we’ll. But it was not because of a preconceived idea that they’re young. That’s as my main and only point.

Now to answer what you were saying as separate idea. I’m mostly with you. Definitely I don’t know why adli won’t play. I do think he was more a project than you and some others are letting on, he was far from a polished player but his passing ability and ball recovery numbers seemed like an obvious fit here. I haven’t been that impressed by Vranckx and honestly I think he was just a gamble to fill out some roster depth. Thiaw I understand the frustration that it took him so long, but every bundes fan said he was very raw, and he came from the second division on a team that leaked goals in the top flight. And considering Maldini said we want to teach our defenders here and we’ve done a good job with defenders, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt. At his age, nobody will remember or care about the half a season he didn’t play if Thiaw keeps growing and playing like a beast. That’s nitpicking.

I wrote earlier today and I stand by it, I don’t believe our team is that deep/well rounded. I think we have a Roma/lazio level bench, and we are defending champs that went to CL semis. Like I said, it’s not that Pioli didn’t make mistakes, he clearly did. But considering we’re still in the thick of a top 4 dogfight outside of only napoli, and seeing as we dropped points almost every time he rotated the team, i think it’s almost impossible to say that with a better bench we wouldn’t be several points higher and probably sitting comfy in 2nd place. I think that is extremely likely. I blame management for their summer squad building more than I blame Pioli for squad mismanaging.

 

[Balo45]

Almost our whole team qualifies as young so him not playing young players is a baseless argument. He doesn’t play the ones that don’t impress him in training.

I doubt Pioli looks at a player killing it in training and says “Nah…I’m not playing you, I don’t give a shit how good you are”.
MMM just gave him mediocre players last summer. The good one, Thiaw, got his opportunity and is now a starter.

I agree with this entirely, basically my entire point. Remember people whined and whined about Hauge, even saying fuck Leao for him, and look how that turned out.

Imagine at Thiaws age if 3 years from now when he’s a full blown tank someone goes “durrr remember when Pioli didn’t play him from august until January his first season.” Like ok bro cool. I’ve seen many richer clubs fumble better players than thiaw, I’m not gonna sit and moan about Milan discovering a young center back for 7 mil. I’m glad we gave him a chance at all, many don’t.

Adli is the one who checks the boxes for being for having some talent and just really not getting a chance at all. We’ll see how it turns out. It’s very possible he doesn’t train well, he’s timid, maybe Pioli just doesn’t want a guy of his style. Maybe he does suck idk. But the point remains, the list of young players not getting time is ridiculously small. Let’s go for better players this summer.

 

[Panache]

What I was saying, is it took 2.5 years to see that Diaz position is better at RW and that the midfield is more secure with a CM playing there. So maybe he's not properly seeing what's happening in training.

About Diaz at RW…it’s not fair to declare him a success there already. The sample size is too small. We’ve seen him play at AM and fuck up but he also had ok games and I even remember some people saying he could replace Hakan eventually. I’m not a Diaz fan period. I think he’s a very limited player at AM and at RW. Let him play at RW enough games and I bet you he’ll be exposed there as well and we will all be blaming Pioli for not giving someone else a chance at RW.

Also, the only reason we’re even seeing Diaz there is because KESSIÉ was never replaced and nor was Hakan. Again that’s MM’s fault and not Pioli’s. If all our players are healthy, Diaz is not a guaranteed starter. During our best run of last season, it was Kessié, Krunic and Tonali playing in midfield with no traditional AM.

As in you said he doesn't play certain players because he sees they aren't good in training. I mean in the game before last, Adli was on of the best players when he came on. And in the Samp game, the team is winning 5-0 and he doesn't even get to come on as a sub, How does that make any sense? Can the player be much worse in training than in actual games?? The real games are more difficult and competitive than training...

I know Vranckx and Pobega are very limited players. They definitely didn’t impress enough to DESERVE more playing time.
With Adli, it’s a little weird because we own him (unlike Vranckx) and he’s not here just for the homegrown/Italian quota (Pobega). But there HAS to be a reason why Pioli isn’t convinced or doesn’t want to play him. It could very well be for disciplinary reasons or something we don’t know about yet. I joked about there being a clause in his transfer from Bordeaux where we’d owe them more money if he plays more than a certain number of minutes in his first year lol. You never know but I won’t be surprised if it’s true given how cheap he was. Maybe MM thought we wouldn’t need him and agreed to a silly clause like that. Same reason Bakayoko doesn’t get any playing time basically ( another DUMB deal, btw).

 

[Balo45]

You didn't see what I said... I said that Pioli is on a similar level as the other big Italian clubs coaches and not a really bad coach. So obviously as a decent coach he would have done some good things!! Good things including playing and developing Leao! So you don't have to bring up all the good things he did over the last 3 years!!

What I was saying, is it took 2.5 years to see that Diaz position is better at RW and that the midfield is more secure with a CM playing there. So maybe he's not properly seeing what's happening in training. As in you said he doesn't play certain players because he sees they aren't good in training. I mean in the game before last, Adli was on of the best players when he came on. And in the Samp game, the team is winning 5-0 and he doesn't even get to come on as a sub, How does that make any sense? Can the player be much worse in training than in actual games?? The real games are more difficult and competitive than training...

I already gave Pioli credit as a decent coach. Obviously he has to improve in some areas, if he didn't then he would be of the level of Guardiola and even Guardiola has had to learn and improve...

We literally won the league LAST season by dropping Brahim and playing Krunic/Kessie in his spot, it did not take Pioli 2.5 years to discover this. That’s just wrong, as a fact. Brahim also played right wing some last season and was fucking horrible but people keep using a really small sample of a few recent games to justify him being a permanent RW.

Look he did make some mistakes we all know that. But I would also say he was given a thinner midfield and didn’t have the options or quality he had before(Hakan and kessie). I’m not saying he hasn’t shown stubbornness when he definitely has at times. But I’m tired of reading “Pioli is obsessed with playing Brahim” or “Pioli took til his fourth season to realize a third mid was needed” when he’s literally shown the opposite multiple times before! It took him too long to realize it THIS season. But in the past when he had deeper and better midfield he showed a lot more flexibility.

 

[Soldier_of_god]

I had a vision. We neat jube 2 0 but lose to Verona 2 0. We just about qualify.

 

[Soldier_of_god]

Only meelan after winning the title would make the squad worse and not invest. Our sxudetto winning team was a gun team.

 

[Balo45]

Only meelan after winning the title would make the squad worse and not invest. Our sxudetto winning team was a gun team.

No it actually happens all the time. It’s hard to stay on top.

Still, it’s definitely fair to be disappointed. We have to be. I think we can bounce back relatively quickly though.

 

[BobbySwizz]

Within this whole argument about Pioli's mismanagement of the squad, I would like to remind you all that Messias started at CM in a derby match

That was unforgivable. I'm ready for him to go. It's hard to trust him.

 

[Ash]

When he showed he was better than bt. He left before he showed it here

Lol sure thing mate

Because Pioli really has shown how much he gives youth a chance

Sent from my SM-S918B using Tapatalk

 

[Kmoney]

nice thread on him here

Sign pls. Tall DMs welcome

 

[Kmoney]

Cool that we’re making profit and stuff but it needs to be reinvested into to the team. On the right players. This summer.

 

[Cloren]

Ffs play football

Let players have their own hobbies.

Nothing wrong with this.

 

[Ryo]

I had a vision. We neat jube 2 0 but lose to Verona 2 0. We just about qualify.

If we beat Ladri, we're already qualified.

Roma can't get 67 points and we have the h2h on Atalanta. Even if we lose to Verona, they can't catch up.

Best case we beat Ladri, Atalanta beat Merda 2-0.

 

[Kuroha]

Sign pls. Tall DMs welcome

176 cm??

 

[Cloren]

I don’t know why its hard to see that

1. Paul maldini and his workers completely fucked the transfer window
2. Pioli the clueless coach he is couldn’t adapt or try to make changes despite being tactically overpowered by several coaches

I blamed entirely maldini for the way we played in the first half of the season.. but they way Pioli handled the last 6 months was absolutely amateurish and unacceptable

TWO THINGS CAN BE RIGHT.. you know

This x100

Why do people need to think its either Maldini or Pioli. Both are to be blamed for what happened. Our 2023 was absoutely awful and that's on Pioli. We didn't make the leap we should because Maldini didn't do a good mercato, we didn't do a good job in the league and couldn't beat fodders because of Pioli.

This is it, this is the take. It's not 100% Pioli's fault or it is not 100% Maldini's fault.

 

[Cloren]

I also don't think that MMM need to offer Pioli an incredible transfer market to beat... relegation teams. It has been losing and dropping points to bottom half teams that has impacted Pioli the most this year. In big games, he's been pretty good, except for some fucking reason he consistently makes the worst choices possible against... Inter. It boggles my fucking mind.

He's an Interista!!!! That's why!!!!!!!!!

 

[SecondStar]

With the amount of spinning taking place in here regarding our financial health, we better win at least the Coppa Italia next season. Disgrace of a season. Worst title defence ever. 11/12 was actually a dogfight, we didn’t even compete for the title this season and knocked out of the Coppa by Torino in the round of 16 (our first round btw) smh. Redeeming quality was the UCL run and that ended bitterly. Wouldn’t even care if we were knocked out by city or Madrid. I’ll still be here next season though

Inter is supposed to be finished, capitulated, over, bankrupt, liquidated, you get the point yet they’re still winning trophies and getting to the UCL final and you would think this is a forum for accountants preparing for their cpa exam. I’m not against our financial stability whatsoever but it’s pointless to harp on about it if it doesn’t translate to sporting success.

Guy really wrote that inter is at the end of their cycle. How do you know that? That statement was delusional coping. They don’t need to sell anyone due to their UCL revenue this season. They’re not in a great shape financially but marotta will keep them competitive for the foreseeable future. They can keep delaying and restructuring their oaktree loan if they keep getting results on the pitch. If spalletti leaves and this napoli squad is sold off piece by piece and Juventus’ woes, inter will be the favourites for the scudetto next season. That’s unless we have a great mercato. You guys need to be realistic for once and stop the delusions.

 

[Soldier_of_god]

No it actually happens all the time. It’s hard to stay on top.

Still, it’s definitely fair to be disappointed. We have to be. I think we can bounce back relatively quickly though.

Hope so my dude. Hope so. I have lived through banter era. So at this point, I would easily take our top 4 spot plus ucl semis. I do want to win the sxudetto. Like dominate in serie A. Now that jube will be exiled.
Hope we can focus and wi. 5 6 scudetti over the next 10 years and 2 champions leagues.

 

[Longbowman]

This.
Racism vs Vinicius and Racism vs Diakhaby should be treated equally.
Banners and campaigns don't matter much without solid action.