There's an old saying, good players win football matches more often than not. The manager's job stops when they step over the line.

If they're a mess on the pitch and the players not up to it, that's on the players as much as the manager.

That's diminishing the manager's job incredibly. Better it stays an old saying. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Not really. Doesn't matter how good the manager is, if the players aren't delivering on the pitch you can get Carlo Ancelotti, and Jose Mourinho sacked. Which has happened. World class managers made to look poor.

The manager has his own responsibilities, the players have their own. It's as simple as that. Both parties should be up to par in terms of quality.

True, but look at Thomas Tuchel - great manager, and yet the players failed him.

Maybe I owe an 'you were right' to Danny.

Pulisic has been absolutely awful tonight.

I know you guys are probably bored of or even disregard my babbles about the parables between Rangers and Milan, but they continue to haunt me.

Both sides have utter gash preseasons, Rangers began their competitive season off with a horrific loss at the Serie A equivalent of Lecce, a poor side who remained up last season but only just and Milan cannot win against a single side of any note.

They argue friendlies 'don't matter' but I believe they do. They indicate a team's state of mind as much as anything else, the productivity of the transfer window.

A good Milanisti friend of mine penned an article on his worries of the Rossoneri defence, IE the fact we basically haven't signed anyone. Look how vulnerable we are.

Same as Rangers. The manager literally dumped defence, despite it being the achilles heel, and signed basically no one. And we have one win in 5. Including competitive. Sadly the only win was v a lower league opposition.

The great Milans (and Rangers) of the past had an 'Iron Curtain' at the back, great defences - Maldini, Baresi, you name it, Sacchi and Capello and Carlo etc all had great defences, and we didn't let too many in. Rangers the same, you guys probably won't know Weir, Gough, Butcher, Cuellar - and those sides all won the league, or 'things'.

Now?

Rangers have exactly the same defence Milan do. Tavernier useless RB captain, sound familiar? Calabria. Goldson weak in the middle, Kalulu/Thaiow. One GOOD defender - Souttar = Tomori. But can't do it alone.

Doesn't matter what you sign in midfield and attack, if you neglect your rearguard you have no chance.

We have changed so many players yet our attacking game remains garbage.

I hope Pioli starts Chukwueze and Okafor ASAP, and I hope we get a decent regista until Bennacer returns.

Giroud should retire. Pulisic has been trash. Krunic should GTFO in Turkey. Kalulu can't play RB.

Very pleasantly surprised by Loftus-Cheek and Reijnders.

We need to get the ball rolling cos we're still playing last year's football and that's unacceptable after more than 100m spent in the market.

Funnily enough Rangers signed 6 new attackers and the attack is now worse than it was. I feel like these clubs share notes on how not to run a football team.

The news re Krunic is emblematic of the issue with Pioli. He wants to keep a player that he is basically misusing and at the most should be rotation and nothing more.

This pre-season has clearly shown that Krunic has no business being a starter, even worse, playing the holding mid role which is one of the most technical positions on the pitch, which requires not only stamina but a lot of positional awareness and ability to recycle the ball properly, none of which Krunic can do. Just blows my mind that we seem to be heading into the season with him starting there and Pioli is the sole reason for that because he rates him so highly for reasons which I simply cannot fathom.

in every pre-season game so far, the issues are still very much glaringly obvious. I see people continuously slandering Kalulu and Tomori, saying they've dropped off. I completely cannot get on board with this. The problem has been the midfield throughout last season and will continue to be this season. The moment we lost Kessie, was the moment we doomed ourselves. Pioli has no clue as to how to make this 3-man midfield work as a unit to shield that defence, so without that you would need a specialist. FFS, the best managers in the world are not arrogant enough to think they can go without a natural DM.


If Pioli lasts past the first 10 games it will be a miracle imo. Because we're going to be in for a world of hurt. Especially considering the difficult start we have coming up.

The management spending so much money and then entrusting it to Pioli, after the atrocities we saw last season... Just no words


Also, in terms of our attacking game, same BS we saw last season and the one before, just no clue unless it's on a counter, we have no buildup patterns. We just pass the ball endlessly in front of the 11 players of the opposing team until we lose the ball and get caught out.

What do you expect to change with the same guy behind it all?

In the spirit of suggesting we might be wrong, a good showing from Loftus Cheek against, admittedly, minimalist opposition.

Didn't think he was a bad signing, just a bit of a sideways one, but if he can be more than that, great!

What's the general vibe on here about where Milan are right now?

Like I said, I'm happy with the signings we made so far

But we're neglecting the most critical one because of Pioli's fetish for Krunic.

Pioli is also a major concern for me. We've seen how limited he is this past season.

Also, I think it's time to seriously talk about Giroud. The guy looks done and it's only pre-season...

Obviously the management did a lot of changes, the chemistry will not be there. It will take time to get this new midfield to click let alone the front line. inter, Napoli, June and Lazio have an edge in this regard.

I have a feeling Pioli will be fired by December and Milan won't have a successful campaign. Another year of rebuilding.

Hope I'm wrong.