That's the thing: is it just a crisis or a downward spiral?
If we are honest with ourselves, we realise that it is the latter. Pioli must have rested too much on his laurels since the Scudetto. The problems we have or the mistakes we make have been going on since matchday 1. Just remember how easy it was for Udinese to score from crosses here.
Pioli assumed he could continue with Bennacer/Tonali as before and underestimated the function of Kessie. His consequence was to pull the handbrake on Theo and tie him up more defensively. In doing so, he robbed us of a strength at the same time. I assumed he would push Pobega into that role. In any case, the statistics would have confirmed it, but Pioli sees him as much more attacking. In addition, there were certainly a lot of injuries, whereby one should not only put bad luck in the room here, but also question the role of the coaching team.
I personally had high hopes for the World Cup break because it would have given the team the opportunity to make adjustments - tactically/strategically and not on the Mercato. But what have we done in this break please, when our learning now is to switch to 3-5-2 while giving up completely offensively. One month after the break, mind you. This is a revelation by the coach, also considering the fact that almost all the players he played with were champions, and at the same time it might have been the oldest starting eleven of the last three years. Afterwards he stands up and says the team has to "mature"? I can't accept that at this point.
It would have been different to retain our basic virtues of the last three years and, if necessary, change to a 4-3-3 and provide more stability with an additional DM. Given the inferiority of our midfield in the Supercoppa, that would also have made sense. If Thiaw, Adli and De Ketelaere then play instead of Kjaer, Messias and Giroud, I can also halfway accept losing 1-0 and saying afterwards how we have to mature.
That brings me to my next point: the integration of new arrivals is worrying. What Pioli is doing with De Ketelaere and Adli is like a dismantling and we are well on the way to completely destroying assets here. That combined with possibly missing out on the Champions League would set us back years again.
Moreover, Pioli has so far failed to get the team back on track mentally after the collapse against Roma and the knockout against Torino. How long should we give him?
After yesterday, we can now attest to having the version of Pioli that everyone here feared with his attitude. Everything that could be credited to him so far is gone.
The coaching market, on the other hand, is interesting: Gallardo (!), Enrique, Pochettino, Tuchel...
..
