Well, Maldini said he probably would have kept Pioli too and he didn't need an algorithm to get Pulisic, RLC and Chuck. So in that light, maybe our season wouldn't have panned out that differently after all (and I'm not starting the now banned Tonali discussion) - and Maldini would have been just as incompetent as those who run the club now
I think that gets a bit overlooked.
I wonder if he said that in an attempt to "lessen the pressure" so to speak on Pioli? There were things he said that I was surprised by, and that was one of them.
Well, yes. If we want to be consistent about RedBird being incompetent for keeping Pioli, then it would have been just as incompetent from Maldini if he kept him too, don't you agree?
And now Maldini publicly said that's exactly what he most probably would have done - after already extending his contract when the cracks were already there.
Add to that his comments about Pulisic, RLC and Chuck and you could argue that the season would probably have taken a very similar course (with the difference of a banned Tonali still being a Milan player) because I don't think the presence of Maldini would have magically prevented all those injuries.
Or is my logic flawed?
You are correct sir. Nothing would have been any different, which is why I find it a little funny that Maldini chose to speak out at this time so self-righteously. If anything, we may have been worse off had Tonali stayed (although he was none the wiser to be fair).
In my longer discussion with Alo earlier, I assumed for argument's sake (as I pointed out) that let's assume the worst about Maldini, that he was being sincere about wanting to keep Pioli and that he was clashing with the new executives (and some of the old ones)--but I did that to highlight my greater concern:
Redbird don't look like they're handling things great on the sporting-side, and that's just not on the pitch (where we are, again,
worse off than last year) but I think there is something that is being missed in these discussions as the narrative congeals around the "things would have been the same with Maldini."
What I think what you aren't addressing in my arguments is that the centerpiece of my concern is what Maldini's interview shows: a lack of planning, poor execution, and what we are seeing for the first time is a real rift between the players and Pioli.
Maybe Rebic was the first? Perhaps. But I think the rumors around Theo. Leao and Giroud arguing with Pioli, not just in the Napoli game, but even when Pioli wanted to sub out RLC, the video of the players disagreeing with his choice, or Calabria's comments and Pioli's defensiveness over them.
Of course, fights happen. I remember arguments on-the-field with Kessie being subbed, Kjaer not wanting to warm-up (I believe?) but what we are also seeing, which I think is the lingering issue with what is happening: we might be damaging the core of this squad.
Selling Mike, selling Theo, being in a state of rebuilding is not great. That's one of the things that journalists who cover Dortmund talk about is that people underestimate how hard it is to rebuild teams, like Dortmund has done for a while now.
I think it's fair to say that our team does not have the same spirit. I also think that beyond firing Maldini, we can see the threads of togetherness fraying. There are a lot of rumors about the players not trusting Pioli, that's the environment that concerns me.
I
assumed the worst in Maldini with that interview to highlight that point. I think there are sincere ways to interpert Maldini's words very differently than you guys have, but that's more about relitigating things that I don't think we're going to see eye-to-eye on.
I think there's a greater concern here, because morale and spirit are extremely important in organizations, and I think we've lost that. I think they know that too, which is why they are trying to bring Ibra back.
It reminds me of how Milan sort of devolved at the end of the B&G era. We used to have so many personalities, Leonardo, Braida, Gandini, etc that worked together, and we lost one, then another, and things got worse. Or how we went from having all these great players, but soon we pushed them to their limits, we still were relying on Seedorf, Gattuso, and Nesta in 2012, and Flamini, Pato, Bonera, etc they didn't fill in that gap, we just kept wearing the team down.
That's what Maldini's interview concerns me about. I'm not really interested in debating the points he raised as much--because I think people have read the comments very differently. What I'm saying is: if we read Maldini's interview with your assumptions, there are much more concerning elements beneath our current state, in how our management currently does business, how it handles disputes, how it deals with players, how it sees itself, and how it goes about achieving its goals.
I think there are fundamental flaws to that, serious ones.
I knew that already. Repeating just make you even dumber
you enjoy it so much you imagine seeing others doing it, mentioned it two times just now
