Massimo Ambrosini has outlined the potential positive and negative aspects of Stefano Pioli’s decision to heavily rotate the starting line-up for the game against Bologna.
Some eyebrows have been raised by Pioli opting to make 10 changes to the XI from the game against Napoli in midweek, with everyone but Mike Maignan starting the match from the bench meaning some reserve players will get an opportunity.
However, the issue is that Milan have not yet secured Champions League football for next season – far from it in fact – so the decision to overhaul the team so drastically could further jeopardise a top four sport.
Ambrosini spoke to DAZN before the game and he was asked what he thought of Pioli’s decision to make so many changes in a big game, with his comments relayed by MilanNews.
“The benefit is physical: let those who’ll in Naples on Tuesday rest. The risk is that the team has fewer points of reference,” he began.
“The benefit is only physical for those who have played more. The risk is that the team has fewer points of reference. It’s different to play with those who haven’t seen the field recently,” he said.
“All the players have changed like against Piacenza before Manchester. But then it didn’t count for anything. Milan only have six days from one leg to the next and this influences. Of course, changing 10 is a lot.”
On the formation: “The solution of the three-man defence didn’t convince me in general, then they found Kjaer and Maignan… There aren’t many stronger than him around.
“He has been needed few times, but decisive when he was. Milan’s defensive phase has improved because they have regained more possession in the game, and Maignan lends a hand in this.”
On De Ketelaere: “We hope it happen be for him. It’s not simple in these guys’ minds: they have to go above everything. We can give them alibis, but they play for Milan. Today, no alibis, you have to go out there and do well.”
Started really well – good bye UCL
The coach should not be chastised. We are at the end of the season, we had to rely on the same players constantly all season due to the lack of proper investment from ownership group that didn’t want to put money in the team. If our players that were brought in had the quality we needed immediately, or soon after, couple of months in since arriving in Milan, our starters would have been rested more often this year. We would be rotating 4 players instead of 10. Origi, the midfielders, our defense and goalkeepers were invisible. They chose to stick to the same team while loosing our best midfielder, a solid back up defender and expected Giroud and Origi to carry our offense. Ridiculous. Origi barely played 8 full games per year outside of Belgium and France, yet we let Kessie walk to sign him. Kessie scored more goals from open play as a midfielder so it shows you that the team building, depth was not a priority. Pioli didnt let Kessie walk, he didn’t refuse to let us sign a striker nor did he let Romagnoli leave, or keep a goalkeeper as backup that couldnt catch a flower bouquet at a wedding if his life depended on it. The injuries to our depth players are not surprising, our starting players too, there has been a history of it in their cases. We expected and prepared for the best instead of the worst, which is a recipe for disaster.
Bro, nobody is going g to read this …… way too long. Nobody comes on here to read a bible…
Well said.
It is barely a paragraph. Hardly a bible. It is a brief explanation of why we have 10 players being rotated in the next game. The coach works with what he was given. There is the twitter feed, bird brain version of my comment. Enjoy
Lol you said “brief”.
You’re not smart because you use a lot of words, in fact, one could argue the opposite.