I hate to do this to you bro but you sound VERY similar to the crowd who cried and cried about how Pioli was killing Hauge
Okay, ow. Unnecessary.
Sam I know you’re going to die on this hill against me regarding Pioli’s use of the team but I think you’re not giving any flexibility toward any room for the idea. I hate to do this to you bro but you sound VERY similar to the crowd who cried and cried about how Pioli was killing Hauge. Look how that one ended up. So for the sake of the argument bear with me and try to play devils advocate against yourself.
I know your argument is “Pioli regressed” but go back in time to June 2022. End of 3rd season with Pioli, coming off a title. We had shown growth season by season, always attacking intent, routinely playing one of the youngest teams in Europe, young players clearly growing, Pioli looked tactically interesting and flexible. Wouldn’t you argue a title winning coach deserves some more say on what players come in? Would you really have said “Pioli has to be put into a position to play certain players?”
Can’t you at least admit it’s possible, even if you disagree with it, that most of the players that came in this season just weren’t that good? In my opinion the team was objectively thinner at worst, and honestly not as high in quality either. I do not think it’s a coincidence we were right there with Napoli until the second half of the season when it was post World Cup and the team was deep in Europe.
In the same way I don’t think it would be fair to judge Maldini off one summer, I think it’s really harsh to go fully against Pioli for a season he still hit top 4 and went deep in the champions league. And I don’t think the group of players brought in last summer is worth clamoring like this over.
The thing that I don't like is that... You're talking to me as if I was a Pioli hater from the start. I was a huge believer in Pioli before. I praised him to high heavens for what he did here, to the point of
ridicule here.
Fine, let's say that all the players are bad. CDK is bad. Vranckx is bad. Adli. All of them (except Thiaw) are bad. Great. Let's assume that, now, two questions:
(1) does one bad transfer market justifies Pioli having
this bad a season? And (2) Does it justify him being out-performed by Lazio, who had
far less resources than he did?
There are countless metrics that Pioli has failed at, from before, in particular his athletic training staff, where Milan was consistently the most injured side, which harms his ability to even use players, but again, my view is: if you had to fire
one of them, then I think Pioli should have been the guy, because I don't think he was dealt enough of a transfer blow to justify his Serie A performances.
But let's go back to this: if Thiaw was the only good player, why did it take until 2023 to play him? If Pioli was so burdened by bad players, why did it take an injury crisis for him to finally play Thiaw? CDK didn't seem to need an integration period, he was played from the start.
I'm not "clamoring" over players, I'm not a CDK defender, lol. But CDK was a
Moncada pick, and
Moncada is the one who is now in charge. Adli,
probably a Moncada pick. So... I just don't get how you can excuse so many systematic failures of Pioli's reign and boil down Maldini's evaluation
one transfer market, when Pioli gets an entire season to succeed or fail. And he finished being
Lazio.
Every SD who has ever lived has had a stinker for a transfer market. And maybe Pioli just had a bad year this year? Okay, fine. But if you're going to say "give Pioli the benefit of the doubt" then... why doesn't that extend to Maldini? All the superlatives you use on Pioli could equally be used for Maldini, as would the "benefit of the doubt earned" quotient that you give Pioli.
The metric we are judging is not whether we sustained a title charge, because we didn't. As
you pointed out, we did stay close to Napoli, and then faded. Why? Injuries played a big part, right? Again, Pioli finished behind
Lazio. A team with less resources, less quality, and worse players. How is that the fault of Maldini that Pioli doesn't know how to beat relegation teams?
