Milan collected just seven points in the last six games and La Gazzetta dello Sport analyses the reasons behind the Rossoneri’s recent struggles.
Stefano Pioli’s side lost their third game of the season against Napoli on Sunday, the second in the last five matches in Serie A.
They are now four points behind table leaders Inter and eight clear of Roma, Juventus and Fiorentina, who sit fifth in the table.
They have also been eliminated from the Champions League, finishing last in a group with Liverpool, Atletico Madrid and Porto.
So, what are the reasons behind Milan’s issues?
Injuries
Pioli has been dealing with many injuries. Simon Kjaer is surely the most worrying one as the Dane has been ruled out for the rest of the season with a knee injury.
Theo Hernandez, Davide Calabria, Ante Rebic and Rafael Leao also sit out of the match, although Napoli were also without the likes of Mario Rui, Fabian Ruiz, Lorenzo Insigne and Victor Osimhen.
La Gazzetta highlights how it will be ‘very difficult’ to replace Kjaer in the market, especially in terms of personality.
Playing style
The second problem highlighted is the playing style. Milan have been too stretched over the last few games, especially against Napoli.
Milan have lost pace, Rade Krunic has been deployed in many different roles up front and Theo’s performances haven’t been the same as the last few seasons.
Milan have become predictable also due to Brahim Diaz’s drop. The Spaniard hasn’t yet scored since recovering from COVID and delivered just two assists.
Old strikers
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport Milan made a mistake by signing Olivier Giroud. The Frenchman and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have 75 years combined.
They’ve often been injured this season and the same goes for Pietro Pellegri, who is much younger than the other two strikers but is also struggling with physical problems.
Franck Kessié
La Gazzetta dello Sport had already highlighted how Kessié’s performances had dropped off over the last few months.
The Ivorian star sees his contract expire at the end of the season and is unwilling to sign a new one.
Milan have offered him a €6.5m-a-year deal, while his agent has demanded a new deal salary in the region of €8-9m per year.
The pink paper wrote that his uncertain future at the club and the pressure from media and fans may have affected his performances.
Four reasons behind every Milan struggle in the past two seasons :
1. Injuries.
2. Injuries.
3. Injuries.
4. All the other stuff combined.
No real squad depth either.
Far too many average players. But they can’t afford better ones, so what can they do? Some good Bosmans and talents from lesser leagues is probably their best bet.
I blame Pioli… how can this team struggle to put 3 passes together and revert to long balls whenever possible. You’ll never go anywhere with that style of football
maldini replaced Calha with… nothing… that is our main issue
I don’t understand what our fans wants the whole team to do, we all can see and it’s glaring that injuries are Milan worrying moment we haven’t had a full first eleven since the start of the season all i can say is let’s look into our treatment room no one is to be blamed for anything or what is going on with the results i know we gonna be back. Cahla is on and off we shall see in the end what a traitor looks like.
Injuries is part of the game and you need to plan for it,like he said Napoli also he’d the same issues of injuries
We need to find a way to scratch out result.we sold some of our best players and replace them with nothing.lastly tactically pioli is not doing well
Krunic, krunic, krunic, krunic
This is where we are financially and we have to accept that. I would rather have 12-13 great players and 12-13 average players than 25 good ones.
Pioli has done a good job but when his time is up I hope we get off the merry-go-round of cookie cutter Italian tacticians. Ragnick would have have been a revelation.
The problem with Milan is insane expectations of fans. Followed by insane expectations on jurnalists. You cant go from midtable struggling to get to UEFA cup to Scudetto winning in two seasons. It takes time and you have to trust the path that the club has taken. Progress should be the key metric, not individual results.
Agree with Kilroy that we can’t (or, the expectation shouldn’t be that we) go from mid-table to scudetto winners all of a sudden. Last year we had a great start to the season, then started to crumble. This season seems to be a repeat.
The primary issue is injuries. If we had a mostly healthy squad at all times, I would like to think we would have continued our initial impressive form for at least a good amount of time. We’ve played nearly every game with multiple key players missing. Obviously the team doesn’t play as well with those players missing.
Lack of squad depth. The players on the bench are very average. When our starters are out, we have to field average players. Obviously the team performance and our results suffer.
Too many not-good-enough players. They aren’t necessarily “bad” but they are fit for a mid-table club. If Milan aspires to rejoin the top clubs, we need top players. Top players require above average salaries, and often significant transfer fees. Milan have not, for a long time, been in a position to afford this.
Dubious tactics. I like Pioli and I think he’s done well. But sometimes he gets the tactics wrong, especially when we don’t have our usual starters and he fields strange choices that don’t work out, and our play is often extremely obvious and therefore easy to shut down.
Overall I believe it’s primarily an issue of money and back luck (?). Money in that we haven’t been able to afford good enough players, so we end up getting loads of loanees or players stuck without a club, which obviously aren’t going to be scudetto-winning material; and bad luck in that so many of our starters are always out injured (may be more than luck, surely something is wrong when we have this many injures season after season).
The line has always been that once we’re in the CL, we’ll be able to have more money for transfers. We got into it last year, and barring a disaster we’ll be in it next season as well. So I have no doubt that as the years go by we will start getting better and better players, and our results will likewise improve. It’s frustrating of course if we’re leading the league for some time and then throw it away, but we shouldn’t delude ourselves that Milan is scudetto-winning material yet; if we do get that far it will require a whole lot of luck, cause the talent isn’t quite there.
Nothing surprising about the slump. Milan have not got the depth, experience and quality to win a marathon but the great Rosario begs to differ.