Pioli: ‘Milan lost sight of the plan’

Stefano Pioli outlines the reasons Milan were only able to scrape a point against Cremonese and have fallen behind in the race for the top four. ‘We lost sight of the plan and tried to resolve the match as individuals.’

The Rossoneri tried to rotate the squad because there are huge games coming up against Lazio in Serie A on Saturday and then Inter in the Champions League semi-final next Wednesday.

However, once again the second string showed they are simply not a patch on the ideal XI, as Divock Origi and Charles De Ketelaere again failed to make an impact, while even Brahim Diaz missed several sitters.

David Okereke gave Cremonese a shock lead at San Siro with his change of direction sending Malick Thiaw and Pierre Kalulu to ground, until Junior Messias equalised from a deflected free kick.

“Clearly we are disappointed, that goes without saying, because we wanted to win and knew if we didn’t change gear, we would struggle to get into the top four. Now we need to take the next three days and recharge all the batteries, because we can do much better than this, especially in the second half,” Pioli told DAZN.

“In the first half, we put into practice all that we prepared and were able to create danger, for instance the goal that Alexis Saelemaekers had ruled offside. We controlled the game, had the right positions, created lots of scoring opportunities, but if you don’t break the deadlock in a game like this, it gets tougher.

“The big problem for me was that we lost our focus, everyone started trying to resolve the match as an individual and we lost sight of the plan.”

This draw keeps Milan level with Roma in fifth, but Inter have leapfrogged them into fourth and Atalanta have also now caught up with the Rossoneri on 58 points.

“We are lacking the determination to break the deadlock in matches. We try everything, but in these situations all it takes is a tiny mistake to change everything. The second half was not something I liked, we lost our sharpness and focus.”

It was put to Pioli that Rafael Leao and Olivier Giroud are simply too decisive to be left out, but the coach disagreed.

“It’s not about Giroud and Leao, because they were playing against Roma and we still struggled to break the deadlock. The problem is we need to be more incisive in attack, more precise and determined when the game is in the balance.

“What we are not able to do at the moment is win games that we should’ve won. We weren’t just unlucky, we must’ve lacked something in terms of determination or quality, and this means we are throwing away points.”

It felt almost inevitable that Cremonese would score on the counter-attack, as this has been a recurring theme for Milan.

“We had two quick centre-backs on the field because we knew that Cremonese would counter-attack. Going behind is something that keeps happening to us, we don’t concede many goals, but we do concede at the slightest distraction. We all need to work better in terms of concentration and the transitions.”

It is a packed fixture list and Lazio are coming up on Saturday, before the Champions League showdown with rivals Inter, but Pioli does not see fatigue setting in.

“I’ll be honest, I saw a team with energy and intensity tonight. They had the right approach at the start, but it went wrong in the second half when we lost patience and lost sight of our plan.

“How many years is it since Milan have been in the Champions League semi-final? We earned our opportunity to play that fixture and we want to keep going.”